HELPING 
SCHOOL CHILDREN 

SUGGESTIONS FOR EFFICIENT 

COOPERATION WITH THE 

PUBLIC SCHOOLS 



BY 

ELSA DENISON 

OP THE NEW YORK BUREAU 
OF MUNICIPAL RESEARCH 



ILLUSTRATED 




HARPER &- BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

MCMXII 



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COPYRJGHT. 1912. BY HARPER ft BROTHERS 

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

PUBLISHED OCTOBER. 1912 



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TO 
MY MOTHER 



CONTENTS 



OHAP. PAeS 

Foreword xv 

Preface xix 

I. IS EVERYBODY INTERESTED IN SCHOOLS? 

Active interest is overestimated 1 

Latent interest an available source 6 

Outside interest via criticism 7 

A mechanism to stimulate interest 8 

II. THE TRUSTEESHIP OF TALENT AND TRAINING 

Opportunities for occasional service 10 

Help from institutions of higher learning 12 

The social settlement idea 15 

The social worker's greater opportunity 16 

Private charitable schools as experiment stations 19 

The school beautiful 21 

Making artists 23 

Schools and the art museum 24 

A landscape gardener for schools 25 

Music in schools 28 

III. PRIVATE GIVING VIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

Notable giving for schools 33 

How superintendents would invest gifts 39 

The Charlotte R. Schmidlapp Fund 42 

Shoes and clothes for poor children 43 

One public school relief association 45 

What one outside reUef agency has done for schools 46 

Charity's broader opportunity 49 



CONTENTS 

OHAP. PA8B 

IV. SHORT CUTS TO PUBLICITY ABOUT SCHOOL NEEDS 

A "twenty questions" index to school needs 51 

Fostering interest in school reports 51 

Newspapers and superintendents 57 

The schoolman as advertiser 58 

School inquiries 61 

Making school news easy to use 64 

Budget exhibits 67 

Does your town know what you are doing for schools? .... 72 

V. COMMUNITY PROBLEMS SEEN THROUGH SCHOOLS 

Truancy and tramps 75 

Anti child labor or pro compulsory education? 79 

Making citizens in our public schools 82 

The Boy Scouts vs. juvenile delinquency 84 

Public schools athletic leagues 86 

The opportunity for service by religious societies of young people . 89 

Schools and peace 92 

The public library and the schools 93 

Illustrators of natural history 96 

Other city departments and the schools 98 

How children's institutions help educate 100 

Working for playgrounds 103 

Kindergarten associations 106 

Moving pictures for education 108 

Social centers in schools 112 

VI. ORGANIZATIONS SOLELY FOR HELPING SCHOOLS 

Organized parents 115 

A parents' association and a socialized school 118 

What some mothers' clubs are doing 120 

A mothers' council for the school board 121 

The fathers' club 121 

Educational associations 123 

What New York City offers in cooperation 125 

A central city coordinator 128 

What rural schools need 133 

Rural school improvement leagues 135 

State-v;ide combinations for education 138 

vi 



CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

VII. SPECIAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN 

Women on school boards 141 

Visiting schools with official sanction 143 

Who's responsible for school sanitation? 145 

Clean rural schools 153 

Clean ventilation 155 

The bubbling fountain 156 

Good light vs. poor eyes 158 

School lunches 160 

Housekeeping by continuation schools 164 

School gardens and natiu-e study 166 

Fresh air summer work , 170 

Teachers' visits or visiting teachers c . . . . 172 

The social efficiency of teachers 175 

VIII. HOW WOMEN ORGANIZE TO HELP SCHOOLS 

The General Federation of Women's Clubs 177 

The National Congress of Mothers 180 

The Association of Collegiate Alumnae 182 

School patrons of the National Education Association 183 

A legislative campaign by women 188 

A Permanent School Extension Committee 189 

A civic club that made school history 191 

Colored women's clubs 193 

Club mechanism 196 

A state program for women's clubs 200 

IX. PHYSICIANS AND THE HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 

Medical inspection for transmissible diseases 202 

How examination for physical defects starts 205 

Free treatment for physical defects 209 

The school nurse 212 

Where the visiting nurse helps 214 

Watching work as it progresses 216 

What one physician can do 221 

Physicians and the school budget 223 

Physicians on school boards 224 

Specialists and the abnormal child 225 

Open air schools 227 

vii 



CONTENTS 

<1U*.P. PAOK 

'I'he crippled child's friend 230 

Hygiene teaching, social and physical 232 

A substitute for sex hygiene instruction 235 

Health day in schools 237 

Publicity for school health 240 

National associations for school health 243 

X. THE DENTIST'S MESSAGE 

How far awake are we dentally? 247 

Origins of dental inspection 250 

Clinics for free treatment 252 

Individual interest 256 

Dental societies' work for schools 259 

Pubhcity about dental needs 260 

XL WHERE CHURCH AND SCHOOL MEET 

Are ministers interested? 264 

How luinisters may inform themselves 267 

The Laity League for Social Service . . 269 

Sermons about schools 271 

What one church has done 272 

The minister's opportunity 273 

Ethics in public schools 276 

Vacation schools by city or church 278 

XII. THE BUSINESS MAN'S CONTRIBUTION 

A measure for his interest 280 

How organized business men help 284 

The manufacturer and industrial training 288 

Day continuation vs. night schools 291 

"Taking schools to the shops" 293 

Commercial training 294 

A high school advisory committee 295 

Vocational guidance 297 

Opportunities for vocation choosing in schools 301 

How and where to look for work 302 

The "three Rs" 304 

Wasted capital, non-promotion 306 

Talks in schools on business success 308 

School savings banks 310 

viii 



CONTENTS 

CHAt-. PAGR 

School legislation 311 

School voters' leagues 313 

Business men as school commissioners 315 

The business man and the school budget 317 

XIII. HOW SUPERINTENDENTS USE COOPERATION ASSETS 

The kind and amount of outside interest 321 

A standard for cooperation 325 

XIV. NOT-YET-GRASPED OPPORTUNITIES 

The United States bureau of education 329 

A national clearing house for school cooperation 331 

APPENDIX 

Cards and blanks used in this study 335 

A dozen "don'ts" for volunteer inquirers 338 

INDEX (by topics) 339 

Persons and organizations mentioned 345 

Places mentioned, with population of cities 350 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



FATHERS pay: MOTHERS PLAY: CHILDREN MAKE FLOWERS GROW . Frontispiece ^ 
A FEW OP THE "EDUCATED ANDS" LISTED BY POOLE'S INDEX . . Page 2 

ONE WAY OF MEASURING COOPERATION " 5 

BEAUTY making: NEEDED EVERYWHERE: POSSIBLE EVERYWHERE Facing p. 22 
SCHOOL GROUNDS IN OTHER CITIES NEED LANDSCAPE GARDENERS Page 27 
ELIZABETH MCCORMICK MEMORIAL FUND : FOR CHICAGO CHILDREN Facing p. 38 

SOME STIMULATORS OF INTELLIGENT INTEREST " 64 

ONE WAY HOBOKEN WAS INTERESTED IN SCHOOL EXPENDITURES Page 69 

OUTSIDERS PROMOTE DOMESTIC SCIENCE IN SCHOOLS Facing p. 72 

THREE ROUTES TO EFFICIENT CITIZENSHIP " 82 

THE MOUNTAIN COMES TO MAHOMET " 96 

HELPING HOMES VIA SCHOOL HELP " 116 

THE BLACK SPACES SHOW WHAT IS STILL TO BE DONE .... Page 129 

GOOD ROADS TO RURAL SCHOOLS Facing p. 134: 

SHOULD OUTSIDERS PROVE THE VALUE OF SCHOOL FEEDING? . . " 160 

"live nature" study " 170 

WOMEN ARE PROMOTING PLAY " 178 

ALL-THE-YEAR-ROUND interest in BISMARCK " 198 

OUTSIDERS PROMOTE SCHOOL HEALTH " 210 

HOW MANY MORE T>q NEW YORk's SCHOOL CHILDREN NEED? . . Page 249 

SUMMER PLAY MAKES WINTER HEALTH Facing p.278 

BUSINESS AND EDUCATION EXCHANGE VISITS IN DENVER ... " 282 

"learn TO BE WHAT YOU WANT TO BE" " 298 

LECTURES SUPPLEMENT THESE CHARTS " 302 

HELPING SCHOOLS SOLVE LOCAL PROBLEMS ** 322 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 



FOREWORD 

OUTSIDE private interest in a public school not known 
ten miles away seems unmentionably small when 
compared with Mr. Rockefeller's giving $30,000,000 at 
one time to higher education and with $10,000,000 given 
by Mrs. Sage for the study and improvement of social 
conditions. Yet the stories here contributed by a thousand 
spokesmen of public and private agencies in city and 
country tell of benefactions greater even in dollars and 
cents — and vastly greater in the number of persons in- 
terested and in the momentum added to normal social 
forces — than the annual benefactions of the General 
Education Board, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the 
two Carnegie Foundations combined. 

The Bureau of Municipal Research considers this study 
an important contribution not only to handbook material, 
but to the inspiration heretofore available for citizen in- 
terest in every phase of public business. Helping School 
Children is unique in several respects: it gives information 
which was never before sought, for all parts of the country 
and for all kinds of contact with schools; to its preparation 
have contributed 350 city and state superintendents of 
instruction and 650 business men, club women, physicians, 
dentists, ministers, and editors; itself a volunteer study, 
it suggests numerous kinds of profitable activity for thou- 
sands of college graduates and other citizens who have a 
super-interest in public welfare; it illuminates from many 



FOREWORD 

angles the intimate connection of public schools with two 
other vast fields — private giving for public purposes and 
general government efficiency. Its message and its facts 
are needed wherever there is a public school or a civic 
organization. 

As I know social workers, school superintendents, law- 
yers, ministers, editors, and public-spirited women, they 
need and will welcome this record of practical interest 
shown by individuals and organized outsiders in their 
local public schools. 

Yet few even of those intimately connected with public 
school work will be prepared for such an overwhelming 
array of evidence as Miss Denison gives in this book that 
public schools both need and welcome continuous, intel- 
ligent, outside cooperation which stimulates and does not 
paralyze taxpayers' responsibility. The $10,000,000 which 
she estimates is spent outside of schools to help work 
inside of schools is a small part of the giving. Many mil- 
lions more are voted in taxes on account of this outside 
interest. Infinitely more important still is the beneficial 
effect of this outside interest upon the efficiency and spirit 
of the annual spending of nearly $450,000,000 for public 
education. 

Since Miss Denison began her study numerous inquiries 
from all parts of the United States have come from within 
and without public schools which show how contagious is 
the story of cooperation. The three letters cited on page 
287 from one chamber of commerce are typical. The first 
one said, ''Our chamber has confined itself to business 
questions"; the second, ''We have been thinking more of 
your question about the relation of our chamber to public 
schools. What have other business men's organizations 
done?" The third asks, "Will you please outline the 
kind of cooperation which you think our chamber in a 



FOREWORD 

city of 50,000 might give to our public schools next 
year?" 

At this time of increasing demand for better schools and 
better government, and for lists of next steps and higher 
standards of efficiency, this statement by a volunteer of 
how other volunteers in all parts of the United States are 
learning about and cooperating with their public schools 
will be of unusual helpfulness. 

William H. Allen. 



PREFACE 

PROBABLY $10,000,000 is being spent every year by 
agencies, public, private, and semi-private, to supple- 
ment the work of public schools in the United States. 
Enormous as this sum is, more than the income of the 
Rockefeller and Carnegie Foundations combined, and 
equal to the cost of two battleships annually, the esti- 
mate is conservative, including, as it does, the coopera- 
tion of hospitals, museums, civic and relief agencies, and 
the great national associations whose work touches in- 
timately the problems of public schools. 

Thousands of men and women scattered over the country 
are specializing in some form of school cooperation. To 
outside interest the schools owe largely their present kinder- 
gartens, domestic science and manual training, playgrounds, 
social centers, vocational training, open air classes, medical 
examination, and dental treatment. There is no specialist, 
no professional or business man or woman, whose expression 
of intelligent interest in one of the various adjuncts to 
school life and work — aside from voting and paying taxes- 
would not be valued community social service. 

From men and women in 400 cities, large and small, have 
come to the Bureau of Municipal Research stories of work 
done for schools, stories that show keen interest and un- 
bounded desire to cooperate. A medical society has in- 
spected all the children in public schools, and offers to give 
free treatments for physical defects. A chamber of com- 



PREFACE 

merce is ready to help secure business training. A woman's 
club is supporting vacation schools until the school board 
is able to carry them on. From superintendents and 
school people come expressions of thankfulness for what 
the schools have received through outside interest. 

This is one side of the picture. On the other are the 
ever increasing array of criticisms, the thousands of sick, 
overage, and retarded children, illy taught children, chil- 
dren turned out unequipped, the poor teaching, unhealth- 
ful, unethical schools, wasted money, inefficient adminis- 
tration, and the fundamental apathy of a majority of the 
public on school questions. 

Comparing what really exists in our school system with 
the needs of schools and of school children, much remains 
to be done. In the great fund of available outside interest 
lies one indispensable means of doing it. 

The term ''outside" is infelicitous because no one is 
outside, beyond the need of public school products, and 
no school is beyond the need of citizen support. It is used 
to distinguish volunteer, unofficial assistance from help 
which comes to schools through the tax-supported system 
itself, through teachers and other school employees. 

Since so much time and money are available from out- 
siders, a wise and progressive superintendent or outside 
agency wishes to make it do the work needed. Because 
there are so many valuable suggestions in what each woman's 
club, each public education association, dental associa- 
tion, or chamber of commerce has done, we are passing 
on some of the most helpful facts in the belief that one 
community and one organization may wisely learn from the 
experience of another, may be saved from experiments and 
from the wasting of time, money, and, most precious of all, 
enthusiasm. 

The instances here cited are not given as all-inclusive. 



PREFACE 

They are, however, representative, and from them I hope 
will stand out many unknown, undreamt-of funds of help- 
fulness, many necessary "next steps" which may just 
happen to fit in the program of superintendents and outside 
agencies for their local work. 

My gratitude to the Bureau of Municipal Research, 
which suggested and supervised this study, can only be ex- 
pressed by saying that its help made the work possible. 
My thanks are also given to the many women and men 
through whom the greater part of the iiiformation in this 
book was secured. 



HELPING 
SCHOOL CHILDREN 



IS EVERYBODY INTERESTED IN SCHOOLS? 

Active Interest is Overestimated 

SPEAKERS, educators, journalists, women's club lead- 
ers, never tire of talking and writing about public 
education, its developing powers, its blessings, its relation 
to everything mental, moral, and physical under the sun. 
''Every one is interested in public schools." ''The one 
thing people do not go to sleep about is children." Ex- 
president Eliot some years ago said that of all the inspirit- 
ing and moralizing agencies in American society the public 
schools alone had gained in influence and increased in 
strength since the Civil War; that legislatures have de- 
clined in efficiency, the courts are less respected, the 
church has been left behind; that education alone has 
retained its hold on democracy, becoming more and more 
effective. 

If this assumption were correct men would welcome an 
increase in school taxes more generously than in other 



HOW MAGAZINE WRITERS SHOW THE 
CONNECTIONS OF EDUCATION 



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A FEW OF THE EDUCATION ANDS" LISTED BY POOLE'S INDEX, 1902-1910 



IS EVERYBODY INTERESTED? 

taxes, and would vote more conscientiously at school elec- 
tions than at other elections. Yet the old New England 
town meeting, where the school budget is read, approved, 
and passed, but usually without discussion, is rarely at- 
tended by the townspeople. Voting increased sums is at 
times the easiest thing to do, and does not necessarily mean 
intelligent interest. Where women have had the school 
franchise for years they frequently admit that they have 
shown no special interest in school elections. Ask the 
average citizen a few questions about school administration 
or finance. He thinks the school, like democracy and 
graft in politics, will go on anyway, whether he pays at- 
tention or not. Children have always seemed to get 
"educated" somehow, at least they stayed in the school- 
house from nine until three and brought tattered books 
home to study from. Since school boards are made up 
of good men ''serving without pay," why bother about 
school administration or school budgets? Public schools 
are state or city business. 

The usual situation is described by a former member of 
the board of education in a southern city: ''We have a 
large number of citizens who take a great deal of interest 
in schools, and who would like to see even more and 
speedier progress made in the way of useful knowledge and 
culture. On the other hand, many people who incline 
, to follow old methods are opposed to any kind of innova- 
tion. The latter class has dominated. People are in a 
receptive state of mind, and with proper presentation a 
great deal of interest can be aroused." 

Those whose contact is closest with help from the outside 
and who logically should know best what has been done 
are the superintendents of schools. What they say about 
outside help is shown by the chart (Fig. 1), based on 
answers from 315 city superintendents to the question, 
2 3 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

"What have citizens, individually or in groups, done to 
help the schools of your city, aside from voting, paying 
taxes, and serving on school boards?" 

The black space tells that the large majority of superin- 
tendents report no work along all but one of the lines sug- 
gested. This does not necessarily mean that in 190 of 
these 315 cities nothing has been done about medical 
inspection. It may mean this. It may mean that physical 
examination of school children was secured by superin- 
tendent, health department, or board of education without 
outside assistance. It may mean that unofficial aid was 
sought and refused, or that the help given was not in the 
superintendent's mind worthy of being so called. 

Moreover, where superintendents have mentioned civic 
cooperation it does not necessarily mean that 100% of a 
particular need has been met. It may mean that a frac- 
tion of a problem has been solved with the assistance of 
outside organizations. In the matter of decorations, for 
example, "help received" may stand for anything from 
one picture in one school to the complete aesthetic arrange- 
ment in all schools of photographs, statuary, rugs, wall- 
coloring, and furniture. Referring to budgets, it may stand 
for one letter written to a newspaper or for a year's cam- 
paign to get increased appropriations for open air classes. 

Schools are competing constantly with charities and 
philanthropies, both for official support and — as yet lamely 
— for the attention of those with leisure and means enough 
to be interested in "community work." One superinten- 
dent writes that his city is not one in which citizen par- 
ticipation has been marked in educational affairs; the 
citizens have, however, been active for the hospital and 
Y. M. C. A. 

Four of 142 superintendents, writing of needed gifts, 
mentioned bequests to schools by will-makers. In a New 



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HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

England town where a recent bequest of $25,000 was left 
to be divided among uplift agencies, $5,000 was given 
to the public schools and $20,000 to a hospital whose total 
capacity for treatment was twenty-five persons. 

That benefactions, the large ones, do not reach public 
schools is shown by the distribution of the $267,000,000 
given away in 191 L It went, so the newspapers showed, 
to foreign missions, hospitals, municipal homes and asylums 
"for the poor, the ill, and the aged," homes for gentle- 
women, medical research, parks, boulevards, orchestras, 
endowment for colleges, charitable institutions, pension 
funds, and Y. M. C. A, buildings. Many of these activi- 
ties are as much city or state business as schools are. The 
only giving for schools mentioned was for the Ohio Me- 
chanics' Institute and $75,000 to two high schools in which 
Mrs. Russell Sage was interested. Mr. Carnegie's $208,- 
000,000 thus far given has not reached schools except in- 
directly through colleges and universities and the Carnegie 
Institute. 

By the measuring and testing which any one can do, 
by what superintendents say about outside cooperation, 
and what schools are receiving from givers, the assumption 
of universal interest in schools is not proved. 

Latent Interest an Available Source 

The general interest of communities in school affairs may 
not be continuous, may not be steadily intelligent, but it is 
a tappable source at a crisis. This was demonstrated in 
Philadelphia when the need for a new school code came up, 
or when in New York a new educational charter "threat- 
ened" the schools. Though, fortunately for the children, 
crises in schools are not daily or weekly occurrences, it is 
easy to arouse interest when there is an opportunity for 

tense feeling or tremendous and righteous indignation. 

6 



IS EVERYBODY INTERESTED? 

At such times there become apparent potential assets of 
force, energy, and enthusiasm outside the school that have 
accomplished and can accomplish wonders. As one super- 
intendent has written, "We can always secure the moral 
and financial help of citizens when we call on them." 
This latent interest, with all its possibilities for usefulness 
and the fundamental pride of people generally in public 
schools, have been fostered by some superintendents, col- 
lected and stored in reservoirs to be kept there fresh and 
ready for direction into the channels where they are 
needed. 

Outside Interest via Criticism 

How many school problems are as yet unsolved is proved 
by the mass of criticism and even abuse aimed continually 
at our schools. A recent sympathetic series of "What Ails 
the Schools?" interviews with educators and prominent 
citizens by Tristram W. Metcalfe, school editor of the New 
York Globe, classifies some of the problems needing reme- 
dies as follows: 

Studies not made real to the pupil 
Pupils not properly classified 
High schools inadequate 
Teaching much that is useless 
Results poor in English and arithmetic 

Do not help increase earning power 
School board acts without facts 
Opposition to desirable changes 
Do not meet conditions in the city- 
Uniform course for varying abihties 

"Educational Trust" 
Dissatisfied teachers 
Superficial training 
Lack of preparation 
Continuation schools needed 
7 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

Neglect to fit pupils for business 
Neglect to fit pupils for fife 
Neglect to meet pupils' needs 
Misleading data of pupils' progress 
Discouraging outside cooperation 

A principal declares that a revolution is necessary in 
present methods of education. A physician writes that 
schools are physical menaces to children. Everybody 
knows that high schools are not holding their pupils until 
the end of the four years — or the first year — and that the 
usual course of study is not flexible enough. But all this 
criticism does not alter the firm tradition that our schools 
are the bulwarks of democracy. 

A Mechanism to Stimulate Interest 

There are evidently, then, discrepancies between what 
everybody is supposed to be believing and feeling all the 
year long about public education and what is actually 
done to evince the intelligence and amount of active interest 
on the part of the public. To meet these discrepancies a 
mechanism of volunteer organizations outside the school 
system has developed. Some are general, like public edu- 
cation associations which are interested in many phases 
of school work; others are specializing agencies devoting 
themselves, for example, to school art or school play. 
There are, besides, special committees which act as inter- 
mediaries between the schools and national or local groups 
of women. Some of these are temporary, produced at a 
crisis to express latent interest; others are permanent 
watchers of what needs to be done for schools. 

The number of agencies making up the mechanism for 
school cooperation varies, of course, with the size of the 
city. In New York there are nearly 200 public and private 

8 



IS EVERYBODY INTERESTED? 

organizations in touch with schools, at a money cost alone 
of over $1,000,000 a year. 

Constructive criticism, substituted for random criticism, 
and efficient help from the outside are two forces that must 
combat throughout the country the general lack of informa- 
tion about schools and the consequent lack of helpful in- 
terest in schools. As Dr. E. P. Cubberley wrote in the 
Educational Review in 1901, ''If more of these [outsiders] 
begin a serious study of the problems of public education 
and continue long enough to make it really valuable, it 
will in time work a revolution in the management of public 
schools." 



II 

THE TRUSTEESHIP OF TALENT AND TRAINING 

Opportunities for Occasional Service 

THE public school offers an opportunity for practically 
every specialist and leisured person with definite in- 
terests. A specialist is a diapjnostician, and can tell what 
the schools need in his own field, point out the necessary 
constructive changes to be brought about by the mechanism 
of school and outside interest. Perhaps a feeling of noblesse 
oblige is absent because those in schools who need help do not 
make the opportunities seem attractive and worth while, do 
not show by easy next steps how they would turn special 
interest in the schools to good account. 

Amateur dramatic clubs and society groups are now ex- 
pressing love of acting by giving plays for ''charity." 
Those with dramatic talent might put their time and money 
on plays given for schools in school auditoriums, or with 
school children as actors, on coaching school dramatic clubs, 
or arranging social center parties. JNIonologues, recitals, 
concerts, may be offered to parents' associations or public 
lecture centers. People interested in drama and opera can 
receive suggestions from the Twentieth Century Club in 
Boston, which arranges with the Castle Square Theater 
Company special matinees for high school students. Three 
Shakespearian plays and one English comedy are given each 

year, for which subscriptions are taken up in schools by the 

' 10 



THE TRUSTEESHIP OF TALENT 

teachers of English. If the school board were more en- 
thusiastic about this work the Club feels that it would be 
easy to arrange for a complete series of plays to illustrate the 
English department's work. 

Much-traveled persons, physicians, scientists, sociologists, 
have given their services for talks in schools and libraries, 
frequently with stereopticon slides. Exhibits of etchings, 
pottery, rugs, pictures, photographs have been sent by pri- 
vate individuals as loan collections for schools. Have you 
anything beautiful in your house? Would children think 
it beautiful? Would not great houses filled with pictures, 
carvings, or collections of rare objects have educational 
value if opened occasionally to groups of school children 
with their teachers? One woman has weekly bathing 
parties of a dozen public school girls at her house, and opens 
her suburban home every Sunday afternoon to the children 
who want to come there to play. 

The experts in education of each city are the best people 
to start local school inquiries. A director of physical train- 
ing, when confronted by problems that need technical solu- 
tion, should feel warranted in calling on the physicians, sur- 
geons, and scientists in his city who are best able to help. 
Engineers can do inestimable service by watching school 
sanitation, lighting, and heating, and by letting school 
officials and outside agencies know they are glad to be called 
upon. A member of the board of education in Portland, 
Oregon, writes that ''many valuable suggestions have been 
made as to architecture, material, etc." by outside experts 
when the board has been discussing the construction of 
school buildings. Private schools can point out desirable 
enlargements in public school systems. For example, the 
Wheeler School Alumnae Association demonstrated the need 
for industrial training in the public schools of Providence. 

These are a few illustrations of the trusteeship of potential 

11 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

progressiveness. There is also a trusteeship of conservatism, 
the distrust of change, which makes the majority of citizens 
challenge each innovation in administration and check up 
each new plan or policy advanced by progressive specialists. 
For the conservatives the opportunity is ever present to 
interpret and keep living the solid, fundamental things too 
often overshadowed or outweighed by '^fads and frills." 
They cannot afford to let innovations, unproved, monopolize 
the press. They must emphasize budget, laws, economy, 
and the advisability of a thorough probation of new things. 

Help from Institutions of Higher Learning 

How much time is given by departments of education in 
colleges and universities to public school administration and 
public education? Does the average college graduate, man 
or woman, know how much money is spent by his city schools, 
how many children are enrolled, what the superintendent is 
trying to "get done"? Has he ever read a school report? 
Is an undergraduate ever made to consider his possible 
future service on a school board? 

College women and men have had special training that is 

supposed to make it easier for them to do things in their 

communities. Several superintendents have spoken of the 

desirability of having college graduates on the board of 

education. One wrote, "If you could give us a majority of 

college men, our board might not be any more practical from 

a business standpoint, but there are many questions that it 

ought to handle in a superior manner." Surely cities have 

a right to demand something of those who have had extra 

advantages, some show of initiative, of broad interest, of 

method training. That our communities do not owe more 

to their college-bred citizens is perhaps one fair reason for 

criticizing the training and viewpoint given by most of our 

12 



THE TRUSTEESHIP OF TALENT 

colleges. Even those who in college specialize in sociology 
are not made aware of its connection with schools. We are 
untrained for the most part in the method necessary for 
intelligent, informed cooperation, so that with all the will 
in the world we, as graduates, are unfit to do well even 
volunteer work. 

There are many connections between college curriculum 
and public school administration. Many departments of 
pedagogy are now offering each summer courses in school 
management. At Harvard is given a special series of lec- 
tures on vocational guidance by Mr. Meyer Bloomfield. 
Many universities are arranging courses at special hours so 
that teachers may study for an A.B. or higher degree. Why 
should not undergraduate departments of education make 
their students visit schools more frequently, have talks by 
superintendents and special teachers, arrange open discus- 
sions of new things and progressive changes in education? 
Field work by college students may be done in connection 
with a public education association, a research agency, a 
woman's club, or directly as is done at Smith College, whose 
students have made special school studies in Northampton 
and near-by cities. 

The success of the Psychological Clinic at the University 
of Pennsylvania has proved the mutual benefits from using 
schools for psychological research. The treatment of back- 
ward and defective children is no longer experimentation. 
It has become a science. The summer class for backward 
children teaches only regular school subjects and swimming, 
gymnastics, and domestic science, with intervals for rest and 
lunches; and nothing is done in the clinic school that could 
not be done under any public school system in cooperation 
with a university. Teachers of special children may gain 
training through this department. In the University of 

Pittsburg two spring courses in clinical psychology and the 

13 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

study of exceptional children are offered. Professors of 
psychology are serving in advisory capacity for organiza- 
tions dealing with abnormal children, mental defectives, deaf, 
blind, and crippled children. 

The results of poverty and crime, the maladjustments of 
industry, government, and society that are so strikingly 
reflected in public school children offer fruitful fields for 
sociological research. "Modern Social Conditions as Seen 
Through Public Schools" to my knowledge has never been 
given as a course. If it were, the students would see society 
through the institution which most influences the ideals, 
health, and education of all our population. Undergrad- 
uate organizations, good government clubs, scientific and 
sociological clubs, or graduate seminaries may draw on an 
unlimited supply of lecturers who can relate sociological 
topics to the problems of modern public education with 
which every citizen must sooner or later come in touch. 

Bryn Mawr and other colleges have undergraduate voca- 
tion bureaus which make special effort to discover openings 
in social and economic work. But the colleges themselves 
have been slow in training for many of these careers, in 
making known the possibilities in vocational guidance, for 
example, school nursing or music through the schools, and 
in teaching us a method of investigation and constructive co- 
operation. Our courses in economics do not let us know the 
value of filing systems, indexing, reporting, or chart making. 
For this method training we go to a professional school. 
But here, also, the sociological work to be done through 
public schools is unheralded, unadvertised. What school of 
philanthropy spends time on the social problems in public 
schools proportionate to the percentage of children and adults 
reached through them, or endeavors to make clear the 
difference, for instance, between social center work through 
a social settlement and through a schoolhouse? What medi- 

14 



THE TRUSTEESHIP OF TALENT 

cal school or training school for nurses outlines the field of 
health work and preventive medicine through the public 
schools? 

Columbia University is establishing a ''politics labora- 
tory" of charts and exhibits for undergraduates studying 
specific questions. Every university, through its library, 
might show by an exhibit of school work done in its city 
the interrelation of public schools with all the other govern- 
mental activities, so that no student can help knowing some- 
thing definite about schools when he is turned out to form 
one unit of that much-to-be-desired public opinion. 

The Social Settlement Idea 

''The school should be a social center for the neighbor- 
hood, with the settlement family taking the lead in making 
it such." This is the creed of Greenwich House in New 
York. Other settlements with less vision and less appre- 
ciation of their own limitations have been maintaining in 
their reports for years that the settlement, and not the school, 
is the logical community center. One settlement, on the 
other hand, has frankly stated in its "purpose" that even- 
tually, when the schools are effectively socialized, the 
settlement will cheerfully cease to exist; that it is simply 
an experiment on a relatively small scale. 

The social settlement has demonstrated that children 
need recreation; that mothers need to be instructed about 
child welfare; that physical care of children makes better 
boys and girls; that home and school team work is effective; 
and that industrial training helps children to earn their 
livings. These findings through the years of settlement 
growth are facts now undisputed, accepted by everybody. 
The question now is how to apply the settlement's experi- 
ments so that every child may benefit. 

The ways in which settlements have come in contact with 

15 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

the schools in their neighborhoods are very similar to the 
first steps schools are taking in socializing themselves. 

Settlement School 

Study rooms Study-recre:ition rooms 
Clubs, civic, social, educational Same in school 

I'jitcrtaiunu'iits Social center parties for old and young 

Kiiuler^arlens Public kiiulergai'tens 

Games and athletics Public school athletic leagues 

Helief School relief associations 

Clinics Metlical and dental inspection 

Msiting nurses School nurses 

Music School orchestras 

Gardens School gardens 

Playgrounds City and school playgrounds 

Home visitors Visiting teachers and attendance officers 

Vacation and night schools, open air classes, popular lec- 
tures, mothers' clubs, libraries, defective and *' catch-up" 
classes — these are reaching all neighborhoods now through 
schools. 

Schools owe a great debt to settlements for initiating 
many of the "good things" that are now making schools 
social centers in spirit and in fact. Nothing good, however, 
that a settlement has tried and proved valuable has not 
since been tried somewhere and proved even more valuable, 
because more comprehensive, in school. The best way to 
do honor to the minds and hearts behind the ''settlement 
movement" is to transplant their influence to an environ- 
ment where it may grow even more beneficially, to make 
givers and philanthropists feel the opportunity for extending 
the settlement spirit through larger channels — the public 
schools. 

The Social Worker^s Greater Opportunity 

The desire to be neighborly, to do something for indi- 
viduals and families, which has attracted men and women 
to settlement work, is now attracting them to socialized 

16 



THE TRUSTEESHIP OF TALENT 

activities in public schools. Visiting teachers are simply 
settlement visitors delegated to keep the schools in touch 
with other agencies helping in child welfare. For volun- 
teers the socialized school offers endless opportunities. 
Clubs and classes need leaders. Concerts and dances need 
organizers. Athletics, swimming, and scout work require 
young men and women. For example, three college women, 
unsatisfied with the conventional openings offered in social 
work, found great satisfaction in giving regular time to 
coaching high school girls in field hockey. 

But social workers, volunteer or professional, are gener- 
ally not given a chance to choose to work with schools, 
because the settlement, church, and charity organization pre- 
dominate. Until the field of school cooperation is explained 
to those about to specialize, the conventional, traditional 
openings will claim more workers and more money. Mean- 
while the socialized school will grow in spite of, not with the 
help of, the less permanent, smaller agencies. Some of the 
openings for outside service, paid and unpaid, in schools are : 

School secretaries for relief agencies 

School assistants at pubhc Ubraries 

School demonstrators at museums and zoological gardens 

Secretaries for public education and parent-teacher associations 

Investigators for special studies of school administration 

Employment bureau heads 

Vocational counselors 

Coaches, referees, umpires for athletics 

Leaders for civic classes 

Leaders for glee clubs, concerts 

Recreation leaders for girls' folk dancing 

Playground and summer school organizers and teachers 

Dramatic coaches 

Story tellers 

School lunch administrators 

Home and school visitors 

School publicity agents 

17 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

The development of social centers in school buildings 
shows innumerable ways of being helpful. The woman who 
wants "something interesting to do," and is ready to give 
her time, has now so many choices that it is for her an 
embarras de richesse. Would she wittingly make a fool- 
ish choice, or be satisfied with superficial, ineffective 
work? 

One of the most needed institutions in our big cities is a 
placement bureau for volunteers, a central agency to parcel 
out tasks requiring so many hours a week or so much train- 
ing and experience. Even without such bureau, volunteers 
wanting social work with schools can apply to many sources 
for information — the superintendent of schools, teachers and 
principals, organized charity, or the woman's club. Any 
efficient outside agency ought to be a method training 
school where volunteers in a brief time can see what should 
be the standard for cooperation. Yet the report of one of 
the largest outside agencies in the country naively admits 
that it takes its volunteers nearly the whole year sometimes 
to become intelligent enough to cooperate. Why should 
schools or poor districts pretend to be grateful for such 
unintelligent cooperation? Why should inefficient volun- 
teer or paid work be applauded simply because it is ''for 
others"? Our schools are worthy of the best service that 
the best citizens can offer, not scraps of time from unin- 
formed, unseeing altruists who may perhaps do more harm 
than good. A girl just out of college was getting "trained" 
at one of the large schools of philanthropy. She was sent 
to visit a family where the mother drank and the father 
was a confirmed loafer. She was expected tactfully to make 
the acquaintance of the family skeleton and tactfully sug- 
gest remedies. After the first call she felt absurd, inadequate, 
and brazen. It is equally an insult to send to schools from 
educational associations or women's clubs representatives 

18 



THE TRUSTEESHIP OF TALENT 

without training and without a knowledge of experience and 
technique in solving social problems. 

Until the socialized school is recognized as an opening 
for social workers, school connections must be emphasized 
in existing organizations. There is hardly an '' uplift" or 
'' educational" agency in your town which cannot be con- 
nected with your schools. How many such agencies are 
there in your city? What are they doing for schools? What 
more might they do? Has the superintendent suggested 
how their cooperation might be more efficient and valuable? 

Social workers in any line, through their intimate contact 
with municipal government, have continuous opportunity 
to see how and where the city's business might be improved, 
or where efficiency tests of municipal government would 
mean money freed for social work on the city's part. They 
can make their facts available to the public, to department 
heads, and the money voting powers. For this purpose 
the Conference of Social Workers in New York meets each 
year to discuss budget estimates. Analysis must, for lack 
of time, be superficial, but the men and women who realize 
that they begin too late and do not spend enough time at 
it, also realize their potential usefulness in this line and the 
necessity for concentrated action by social workers before 
and at budget time. Hence the school budget committee 
appointed by the conference mentioned on page 128. 

Private Charitable Schools as Experiment Stations 

The slums of our great cities developed the need for 
neighborhood work, which in turn developed the social settle- 
ment. The Children's Aid Society in some of the poorest 
districts, with the most heterogeneous population in New 
York, expresses this neighborliness through fourteen day 
and seven evening industrial schools which are just pubhc 
schools adapted to the needs of their districts. With 
3 19 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

teachers partly salaried by city funds, and a corps of social 
workers, they aim to straighten out so far as possible social 
and economic maladjustments in the neighborhood. Here 
the children of very poor families are gathered for special 
care ; noon lunches are given to those who need them, cloth- 
ing and shoes, home visitors, the services of a nurse, and 
dental treatment. There are, besides regular grade school 
courses, many industrial classes in cooking, sewing, printing, 
jewelry making, and shop work. There are evening classes 
in sign painting, where you see some boys working with 
simple letters and others just finishing elaborate shields or 
two-tone portraits. After a two-year course, three nights 
a week, these boys can command a salary as painters' ap- 
prentices, and the Society helps them get positions. 

The buildings hum busily in the late afternoon and even- 
ing. There are club rooms and libraries for social gather- 
ings. In the gymnasium the older boys of the neighborhood 
are playing basketball. The Dante Alighieri Club is meet- 
ing in its own room; and in a private parlor with pretty fur- 
nishings some of the older girls are having an ''at home." 
During the hot summer months 3,000 little children are 
given outings on a big farm. 

These schools are ''natural experiment stations," which 
the city system might encourage to try out new ideas. Under 
private management they are free to introduce any new 
activities, to prove or disprove their necessity. As soon as 
the city is ready to do a part of this work wherever necessary 
through its schools, the Children's Aid Society says it will 
turn to something else. 

The very first school dental clinic in America was opened 
by the Society in 1907; the first free class for mental de- 
fectives is claimed by them, the first New York class for 
crippled children, and, as far back as 1876, the first free 
kindergarten. These experiments have aimed in only one 

20 



THE TRUSTEESHIP OF TALENT 

direction — toward changes and developments in the public 
school system which will make the Society's schools un- 
necessary. 

The School Beautiful 

"li we can once give beauty its rights in the school, we 
shall have done the greatest thing we can do toward se- 
curing for our people a more beautiful public life." Deco- 
rating schools has apparently been popular in a large num- 
ber of cities. What some superintendents call decorations 
might not rank so in others' estimation, but from 161 of 315 
cities word has come that citizens have helped toward the 
'' school beautiful." Yet women in 80 of 125 cities did not 
write us of anything done for the aesthetic benefit of schools, 
and many superintendents have told of money needed for 
decorations. 

Pictures, casts, wall tints, plants are put in schools to 
make children love beauty and crave beautiful objects at 
home. Simple things, therefore, not beyond the child's 
appreciation are desirable. There are certain pictures and 
casts that are good to have because of their direct bearing 
on the school work of a grade — ^nature pictures for the lower 
grades, for example, or historical photographs and illus- 
trated poetry. Because the matter of school decorations 
demands thought as well as taste, experts or amateur con- 
noisseurs are needed to direct general interest in the school 
beautiful. Here the woman who has visited the Louvre 
and the Pitti can make use of her picture study. 

The American Art Annual lists some eighteen public school 

art societies made of men and women who have some money, 

little time, and a continuing interest in schools. By pooling 

all three, these organizations act as clearing houses for those 

wishing to give and for teachers and principals who feel the 

value of beautiful objects in their school surroundings. A 

21 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

committee to choose, select, and disapprove is desirable, 
because sometimes gifts do not fit, are less needed than 
something else, or are not suitable for children. 

The Public School Art Society in Evanston, a voluntary 
outside organization, has taken entire charge of "beauty- 
making" in the schools. All the decorations which are 
supplied by the board of education, such as wall papers 
and plasters, furniture and rugs, are selected and purchased 
by the Society, but only after consultation with artists, 
oculists, and experts who analyze the psychological effects of 
color and form on children's eyes. In twelve years every 
room in every school has been criticized and changed many 
times, until the Society is satisfied that pictures, casts, and 
bas-reliefs harmonize with the buildings in an aesthetic 
whole. Special funds are solicited for pictures, and memorial 
gifts have been made to some fortunate schools. 

The New York American recently ran the following edi- 
i?orial on "Gifts of Beauty to the Schools": 

At Public School No. 5, in Brooklyn, the other day, a sumptuous mural 
painting was dedicated — a scene of historical significance having a par- 
ticular fitness to the locality. The artist who made the picture spoke at 
the dedication. He recalled to his hearers' minds the ancient Old World 
practice of ship masters, merchants, and soldiers, who, on their return 
from prosperous adventures, carried some choice trophy or memorial of 
their success into the church as an offering of devotion. 

He suggested that the time might come when prosperous Americans 
would make it a habit and custom to put precious works of art in their local 
school buildings, so that those places might become as well stored with 
votive offerings as were some of the ancient churches. 

The fresco painting in the Brooklyn school is the gift of a public- 
spirited citizen of the neighborhood. 

There are many other prosperous citizens in other school districts. 
They can make the school buildings glorious if they want to. 

In Chrcago a gift of $41,500 was made by Mr. Martin A. 
Ryerson to decorate one school as a model for others. An- 

22 




PUBLIC SCHOOL ART SOCIETY: EVANSTON 




MOTHERS club: DECATUR 

beauty-making: needed everywhere: possible everywhere 



THE TRUSTEESHIP OF TALENT 

other gentleman selects each year from the exhibition of 
the Chicago Society of Artists one picture for a school. A 
whole series of "votive offerings" is being made in the new 
Washington Irving High School, whose decorations are being 
planned and executed by the Municipal Art Society of New 
York, with the advice of the school architect. Parents or- 
ganize to get beautiful things for the schools in which they 
are interested, and women's clubs have found it easy to 
make members "chip in " for a set of pictures. In Dubuque, 
for example, several groups of women secured, by a large 
entertainment, enough money to put statuary and finely 
framed photographs in every public school room. Occa- 
sionally, as in Portland, Maine, where "all the schools are 
well equipped with suitable pictures and statuary," women 
have met the entire problem of decoration, not satisfying 
themselves with a photograph here and there. To stimulate 
the interest of pupils and teachers, the Civic Club of Al- 
legheny in 1898 gave an art exhibit and spent the money 
raised on pictures and casts which, as traveling loan ex- 
hibits, went the round of the schools for five years before 
the objects were distributed among schools. The New York 
School Art League is eager to act as a center for all art 
committees of women's clubs which are affiliated by $25 
dues and a member on the executive committee. In Chi- 
cago, the Public School Art Society encourages each affiliated 
club to select a special school as a recipient for its contri- 
butions, on the theory that "our school" is more likely to 
interest a club than just "schools." For suggestions on 
school decoration, see the American Art Annual for 1905. 

Making Artists 

Besides furnishing decorations, the School Art League in 
New York is helping to secure practical art study and crafts- 

23 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

manship in schools. Several scholarships are provided for 
students who need special training before entering indus- 
trial art as a profession. Fine craftsmanship medals in 
bronze, from a design by Victor D. Brenner, are distributed 
each term among the graduating classes in the school work- 
shops to encourage excellence in the kind of art which leads 
to a definite trade. For this purpose, also, an exhibit of 
industrial designing done in the high schools is arranged 
each year by the League. Parents, teachers, and artists 
are surprised at the variety and talent displayed in the 
pupils' work. 

Artists and art lovers have been interested in the work 
done in schools. Every exhibit of paintings, water colors, 
sculptures, and etchings has its "high school day," when 
teachers and pupils are admitted free and arrangements 
are made for seeing the exhibit in small groups and for 
talks by artists or critics. Though artists do not, as a rule, 
know quite what to tell the children, they see the oppor- 
tunity for creating a new and intelligent public taste through 
the public schools. 

Schools and the Art Museum 

How much the museum has to give schools has only re- 
cently been realized by school people and art directors. 
Cooperation develops slowly because the "want" in pupils 
and teachers must be developed first. The art museum in 
Toledo pioneered in this work. Any day in the Metropoli- 
tan, New York, you will see twenty little girls and a teacher 
or two standing before a masterpiece whose story is being 
told by the museum's educational instructor or by one of 
the lecturers of the School Art League. A course of talks 
by this League on paintings and sculpture is given yearly 
in the museum for public school teachers. The most recent 
venture was a demonstration to some 500 teachers in the 

24 



THE TRUSTEESHIP OF TALENT 

museum auditorium. Here Dr. J. P. Haney, director of 
art in the high schools, talked to a class of children about a 
few selected pictures, as if he were conducting them through 
the gallery, while the teachers took notes on how to do it. 
In the museum a room is furnished where teachers can bring 
their classes to see the stereopticon slides which the museum 
supplies free. Books, reference objects, and casts from all 
parts of the building may be brought to these classrooms. 

To correlate the museum with actual school work, to 
make teachers realize that the collections are for more than 
self-culture, an index is published which tells where to find 
architecture, sculpture, pottery, and photographs that will 
make alive and real the courses in Greek and Roman his- 
tory, English, and drawing. Every inducement, including 
free admission on pay days, is made to coax teachers to the 
building. Gradually they are making use of the museum 
as the directors wish, though far larger numbers of teachers 
and pupils can still be accommodated. 

As its school connection grows every museum will perhaps 
have a staff of lecturers, instead of one, for educational 
work, for personal conferences with teachers and pupils in 
the schools where perhaps loan exhibits of less valuable 
pictures and reprints will illustrate their talks. In cities 
where there is no museum each school may start its own 
collection of casts and prints, which are comparatively in- 
expensive. Loan collections may be arranged from citizens 
who have pictures, or from the nearest museum. 

Why should not museums also exhibit the best work 
being done by leading manufacturers and crafts shops, to 
show what these trades demand from the student? 

A Landscape Gardener for Schools 

" One mothers' club connected with the schools had a 
landscape architect lay out a planting scheme, had the 

25 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

yard graded, and this year they are completing the planting 
and beautifying of the yard." So writes the superinten- 
dent in Decatur. Could there be a nicer way of setting a 
standard for the city beautiful or of showing interest in 
schools? 

There is a complete science of landscape gardening for 
schools. There are rules for planting, for the arrangement 
and building of playgrounds, gardens, and lawns; yet 
how many schools are having the benefit of this knowl- 
edge? 

The story of the work in Decatur is full of suggestions. 
(Fig. 2.) "An energetic mothers' club had been doing much 
in the school. Through it a meeting of the parents of pupils 
was called. Members of the board of education were invited 
to attend, and the whole school situation was talked over. 
A committee of parents and property owners was appointed 
to devise ways and means. It got options on all the lots, 
in some cases making absolute contracts for purchases. In 
this way building projects were held off, and in about a 
year the board of education took over the whole property. 
The Decatur Review commissioned a landscape architect to 
prepare plans for laying out the playground and planting 
the school property. The planting expense was undertaken 
by the Mothers' Club, which, in the spring of 1910, ex- 
pended about $200 as a beginning. It should be added 
that the board of education and the city park commissioners 
cooperated with the Mothers' Club in many ways, finan- 
cial as well as others. A large part of the success of the 
whole undertaking was due to the enthusiasm, inspira- 
tion, and intelligent direction of the principal of the 
school." 

Do you not know a landscape gardener who has civic 
spirit enough to be glad of the chance to lay out similar 
planting schemes? 

26 




® 



® 



® 



® 



m 



Fig. 2 

SCHOOL GROUNDS IN OTHER CITIES NEED LANDSCAPE GARDENERS 

27 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

Music in Schools 

One of the most interesting things to see and hear in all 
New York is a Sunday morning concert at the Music School 
Settlement. The building, in a crowded tenement district, 
is fuU of children, mostly Jewish and Italian, with music 
tucked under their arms, or fiddles carried reverently. 
There is an undeniable atmosphere of joy, and you are 
subtly aware of melodies in everybody's head. As the head 
worker writes: "The desire for musical education among 
the people of a neighborhood like ours does not need stimu- 
lating. It exists in overwhelming extent, and is almost im- 
possible to meet." Every Sunday, first the older, then the 
younger orchestra rehearses, some fifty children in each 
group, and they play remarkably well. I remember especially 
two little second violinists with seraphic smiles, feet dan- 
gling far above the floor. Professional teachers give lessons to 
these boys and girls at twenty-five cents apiece. There are 
plenty of practice rooms in the settlement, a library of music 
and books about music, and a group of workers who are 
bringing the settlement and its music into the homes of 
that district, and incidentally finding out whether the par- 
ents can afford to pay more for lessons. All this is due 
largely to the devotion of one musician, David Mannes, 
and a staff of professionals who are paid a nominal sum for 
their time. The settlement tries to fit boys and girls for 
music as a profession, for positions in orchestras and 
quartettes, and is careful not to encourage the dream of a 
"career" for even the most talented. 

There are two similar settlements in other parts of the 
city, but it seems both unfair and unfortunate that these 
musical Utopias should be accessible to only 300 of the 
hundreds of children who in one city want and deserve the 
opportunities for just this training. There is always a wait- 

28 



THE TRUSTEESHIP OF TALENT 

ing list of several hundred children in one district alone. 
The only possible way that musical opportunity can be 
made available for all the children who want it and cannot 
pay regular lesson rates is through the institution to which 
all children logically belong, the public school. In Chelsea 
the Woman's Club cooperated with the school supervisor of 
music in establishing classes for violin instruction at twenty- 
five cents a lesson. Arrangements are made for supplying 
the entire outfit — violin, case, and instruction book — ^for 
$8.00, "thus placing within the reach of poorer families a 
means of culture in instrumental music." And this oppor- 
tunity is for all children. Parents in Chelsea are also co- 
operating with the superintendent in giving entertainments 
at the school to raise money for popular concerts to "cul- 
tivate the taste of pupils in music." 

The Chelsea Woman's Club has seen the vision of musical 
usefulness in a community. It has gone beyond the cul- 
tural to the service stage and found the greater satisfaction. 
In Dubuque the Woman's Club had mothers and influential 
citizens sign a petition for a music supervisor and real 
musical instruction. "After two years' hard work with the 
press, with free music classes both for teachers and pupils, 
with recitals and public demonstrations of sight reading, 
the board finally adopted music." Other outside agencies 
have expressed a general interest in music by inducing opera 
companies and orchestras to give special matinees for the 
high school pupils and teachers. 

With the growth of the school as a social center, group 
music for the less well-to-do, formerly only available in 
settlements, is being made possible for all children. In 
Portland, Maine, orchestras and glee clubs in the schools 
give concerts for parents. But even the fondest parent is 
not going to be long interested in "local talent," usually 
more local than talent. If school children are to provide 

29 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

entertainment for themselves and their fellow citizens, they 
must be trained both by hearing good music and by having 
a chance to study seriously. 

A reprint, A City School as a Community Art and Musi- 
cal Center, tells of experiments in music which have made 
the small manufacturing city of Richmond, Indiana, a 
model worthy the interest of all music lovers. The audi- 
torium in the new high school is the meeting place of four 
musical bodies — the People's Symphony Orchestra, which 
gives a public concert every Sunday during the winter, the 
People's Chorus of 250 voices, the High School Chorus, and 
the High School Orchestra. The high school offers courses 
in vocal music, harmony, the critical study of music, and 
chorus training, and time spent on music outside the school 
counts toward a degree. In this way the community has been 
''filled with the necessary traditions and appreciation, and 
trained in the skilful execution that can come only with 
years of steady systematic training." 

The Symphony Orchestra is a local organization of 65 members con- 
taining all the instruments of the usual, well-developed symphony or- 
chestra. Thirty-five of its members are also members of the High School 
Orchestra, or are recent graduates of the high school. They furnish the 
city in a voluntary way with a quality of music that is not usually to be 
found outside of our largest cities, where it is usually so commerciahzed 
as to be inaccessible to those most in need of development along lines 
of artistic appreciation. 

The larger city orchestra grew out of the High School Orchestra, which 
will continue to be its nucleus, and the leader of which has been the 
guiding spirit of all of the community musical movement. The High 
School Orchestra consists of 54 members with an instrumentation as 
follows : 



10 first violins, 


2 basses. 


2 bassoons, 


1 timpano, 


10 second viohns, 


5 flutes, 


8 cornets, 


1 drum. 


2 violas, 


2 oboes. 


2 horns. 


1 piano. 


2 cellos, 


5 clarinets. 


1 trombone. 





30 



THE TRUSTEESHIP OF TALENT 

Most of the instruments are owned by the students, but a number of 
the expensive instruments that are of little use except as parts of the 
orchestra " have been purchased for the school by the community. The 
initiative was taken by the Commercial Club of the city, which has been 
very generous in the support of the movement. Other instruments have 
been furnished by the board of education. This board has been more 
than usually generous, not only in supplying instruments, but also in 
supplying a teacher qualified to direct and lead in the musical work not 
only of the schools but also of the larger community. The director of 
music is, for example, the most highly paid teacher in the city system, 
his salary being, in fact, only a little less than that of the city superin- 
tendent of schools. Thus, music in the high school receives as much care as 
mathematics or science or literature, and is credited toward graduation 
in the same way. 

The High School Orchestra was organized some twelve years ago. 
For eight years the high school has been turning graduates out into the 
community who are trained in skilful execution and in musical apprecia- 
tion. In this way the school has been developing musical traditions in 
all ranks of the community. 

The feeder for the high school body of players is the Junior High School 
Orchestra, consisting of seventh and eighth grade students. This is the 
place where they try them out for the first time and gather together all 
of the players of promise, both boys and girls. By the time they reach 
the high school they have "found themselves" on some instrument and 
have already had two years' training in cooperative instrumental exercise. 

With this preliminary two years of training in the junior organization 
the 54 orchestral members of the high school, when they graduate, go out 
into the community having had some six years of systematic instru- 
mental training. They have reached such a stage of proficiency and 
appreciation that they naturally feel a desire for continuing their activities 
after they have left the high school, and have entered upon their vocation. 
And thus the voluntary adult Symphony Orchestra is the logical result 
of the work of the schools. 

What Mr. Mannes, the teachers, and supporters of the 

Music School Settlement have given to New York, other 

artists may give to their cities. What a settlement does for 

some children of the district may be done for all children 

in all districts through schools. What occasional women's 

clubs have done to encourage music in the schools may be 

31 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

done by other clubs. What Richmond has accomplished 
may be emulated elsewhere. 

Is music in the school curriculum? 

How much time is given to it by pupils? 

Is credit given at school, as in Cincinnati, for music lessons taken outside? 

Is there daily ensemble singing? 

Is there a glee club? 

Can children use the pianos after school hours? 

Do musical people give concerts in the schools? 

Will music pubhshers give extra or soiled music for a school library? 

Are there volunteers who would give lessons at a nominal price to chil- 
dren who cannot pay more? 

Are there arrangements in your city to have school children and teachers 
admitted to concerts at special prices? 



Ill 

PRIVATE GIVING VIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

Notable Giving for Schools 

IT may be concrete things, it may be services, interest, 
attention. 

''The Seven Great Foundations" do not need to be 
described. Every one has at least a hazy idea of how the 
Southern Education Board and the General Education 
Board stimulate gifts for higher education and found nor- 
mal schools. Yet, in their modesty, moderate givers have 
not realized that nation-wide school influence can be 
exerted without a million dollar foundation by working 
through mechanisms already running. Take, for example, 
the fund administered for two years by the Bureau of 
Municipal Research in New York. Miss Dorothy Whitney 
was interested in free dental clinics and wanted to start 
one for school children. It was suggested that instead of 
putting her gift where it would help only a very small 
fraction of New York's children, she use it in stimulating 
superintendents, physicians, dentists, and lay organizations 
to an appreciation of the dental need all over the country, 
thus making 500 communities think about the problem, 
helping 20,000,000 children instead of 1,000. Miss Whitney 
saw the larger opportunity; she knew that with a small pre- 
liminary gift she could accomplish indirectly benefits which 
would have cost millions directly. If she could help bring 

33 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

about dental inspection in 300 or even 10 cities, her ratio 
of returns would be surprisingly large. Miss Whitney gave 
$10,000 "to make known everywhere what every one knows 
to be necessary everywhere for the physical welfare of 
school children." Some 200 bulletins were sent to city 
and state superintendents on medical and dental inspec- 
tion, non-promotion, and school reporting, bringing to the 
Bureau of Municipal Research numerous expressions of 
gratitude for suggestions which had pointed the way to 
improvements and increased efficiency. 

It has long been conceded that private gifts must never 
take from the public the burden of educating its children 
nor relieve taxpaj^ers of already assumed duties. There are 
instances of efficient giving which does neither of these, 
while at the same time making up for serious lacks in 
the existing systems of education. Men of wealth are 
proud to give buildings, grounds, endowments to univer- 
sities and colleges, but individual gifts to state or city 
school systems are rare. 

Some notable giving has been done in Saginaw. Mr. 
Wellington R. Burt planned an efficient school system for 
his city, saw where the ''unsightly gap" came, and made up 
for the deficiency. His gifts have stimulated the pride of 
Saginaw's citizens along lines of educational progress. It 
might have taken fifty years of talk to convince the tax- 
payers that these changes were necessary. The dollars 
Mr. Burt invested are securing him returns in efficiently 
educated children, equipped for work and ready to earn a 
living wage. When you think what such giving will mean 
to all the children who will be born and brought up in that 
growing city, you admire IMr. Burt's long-sightedness and 
independent thinking. He might have started Burt Col- 
lege, an orphan asylum, or a home for defectives; instead 
he has brought three excellent things into the public school 

34 



PRIVATE GIVING 

system of Saginaw. He is responsible for a manual train- 
ing school with a bath house and swimming pool, all three 
completely equipped, and serving not only public school 
pupUs, but those in the parochial schools as well; for the 
first trade school in Michigan supported largely by his 
contribution until the school board takes it over; for gar- 
dens on vacant lots near each of the twelve schools, fenced 
and planted with shrub hedges, where practical instruction 
in agriculture and gardening is offered, including corn and 
sugar beet culture. 

In Indianapolis several schools are named after promi- 
nent men whose descendants have 'liberally contributed 
to the equipment and adornment of the buildings." An- 
other memorial gift, the income of which is $1,400, has for 
thirty years made it possible for Woonsocket to have a 
manual training school by meeting the extra expenses 
which, without the outside fund, would make the venture 
too costly. 

Individual contributions as high as $10,000 were offered 
by business men in Columbus, Georgia, to start, build, and 
keep going free kindergartens and primary and secondary 
industrial schools. A bequest of $120,000 was made in 
Oshkosh, and the result is the sixteen-room, splendidly 
equipped Orville Beach Manual Training School. Two 
million dollars has been bequeathed to public schools in 
Muskegon. A recent will made in Saginaw provides for 
four scholarships in the high school and the establishment 
of an industrial school with a permanent endowment of 
$75,000. The only condition in the will is that a course in 
forestry be given. A bequest in Racine enables the high 
school library to use the income of $1,000. Another gift 
of $100 was left to one of the kindergartens. The late 
Elisha Levenworth of Waterbury established a fund of 
$120,000 to further technical and industrial education. 

4 35 



Hl.LPlNC, SCHOOL (MlllM^REN 

Boiijainin Franklin lAi in his will an example of giving 
diret'tly and "forever" to publie sehools: 

I was born in Boston, New England, and owe my first 
Instructions in Literature to tlie free Gramniap Schools 
established there; I therefore give One hundred Pounds 
Sterling to my Executors to be by them, the Survivors or 
Survivor of them, paid over to the Managers or Directors 
of the free Schools in my native Town of Boston, to be by 
them, or those Person or Persons, who shall have the 
superintendence and management of the said Schools, 
put out to Interest, and so continued at Interest forever, 
which Interest annually shall be laid out in Silver Medals, 
and given as honorary Rewards annually to the Directors 
of the said Free Schools for the encouragement of scholar- 
shir in the said schools belonging to the said Town, in such 
manner as to the Discretion of the Select Men of the said 
Town shall seem meet. 

In nuinerons instances gifts of equipment have been 
made. The necessary outlay of a few hundred dollars has 
started domestic science and kindergartens in many places, 
thus directly benefiting all the children who w^ill ever make 
use of these departments. In Plaintield outsiders gave 
equipment for a science laboratory. Wausaw citizen in- 
terest supplied the outfit for domestic science and manual 
training, a chemical laboratory, and a stage setting for the 
assembly hall — and more equipment is needed. School 
libraries can make use of frequent gifts, and are often 
crippled for want of them. In JMorristown S400 was raised 
by interested citizens and given to the superintendent to 
buy books for each grade of the city schools. 

On outside interest largely schools must still rely for 
their decorations, photographs, mounted and umnounted, 
casts, water colors, pieces of tapestry, frescoes, and jars 
for flowers. In a southern town a mothers' club made it 
possible for the city to have a high school by buying the 
furniture for it. They shouldered the burden which would 

36 



PRIVATE GIVING 

otherwise have been the last straw that the finance camel 
could not carry. Ventilating boards for windows are un- 
romantic things, yet the Woman's Club of Newburyport 
by its inexpensive gifts to several schools is supplying fresh 
air for more children than a dozen open air classes could 
cure when chronically ill. The Civic Club in Binghamton 
made it possible for one school to have a printing press. 
The boys are nov/ learning the trade by getting out tickets, 
programs, and school papers. 

At Christmas time schools get far less attention than 
churches do with one-tenth the children. In the poor 
children's districts, ''my school," the symbol of everything 
bright and hopeful in these little lives, can make such very 
good use of a check for its Christmas party and for gifts 
in the homes that the teacher knows will otherwise not have 
any. Yet people apparently prefer to give through a news- 
paper which, in one city, had far more applications from 
would-be Santa Clauses than it could supply with children. 

A school board is often so hard put to prepare for the 

repairs and increases made necessary by natural school 

growth that it is without funds for experiments. When 

outsiders make the first move the success and value of a 

venture which is already proved makes it easier to get 

money for continuing progressive measures. The money 

for experiments and new steps which somebody must start 

in order to keep schools up to the forward line has come 

more often than most of us realize from private citizens; 

and no wonder, considering the opportunity. In Evanston 

physical culture was supported in several schools by private 

means until general interest was aroused. So money has 

been given for the first taking of a school census in order 

to start, as it should be started, the enforcement of the 

compulsory education law. This amount varies, of course, 

with the size of the city, from S7,000 in Philadelphia to $25 

37 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

in a small town. School lunches start with private giving. 
To support a lunch in a school for 2,000 children costs 
about $250 a year. Kindergartens, playgrounds, school 
gardens, athletics, all originated in many places through 
one or two interested outsiders. 

The giving that has been gratefully told about by super- 
intendents includes bath tubs and showers, swimming pools, 
flags and patriotic pictures, kitchenettes and couches in 
rest rooms for teachers, prizes for essays or attendance or 
athletic contests, pianos, sheet music, hockey sticks and 
balls, basketballs and footballs. The Washington Chamber 
of Commerce gives a yearly medal for marksmanship. 
There are twenty trophies to be fought for each year by 
members of the Public Schools Athletic League of New York. 
A much appreciated gift was Mr. John S. Huyler's complete 
set of instruments for a brass band. It belongs to Public 
School 21 in New York, and is the finest band I ever saw 
(not heard) because every boy, even if his clothes are ragged, 
is proud of his position, and plays with unabated energy, 
while all the other boys and girls form in line and march 
to their classes. That band puts spirit and "go" into the 
whole school. It means order, discipline, beauty, romance 
to over 2,000 children every year. 

Grounds have been given for athletic fields, sand and 
equipment for playgrounds, rakes, watering pots, seeds for 
gardens and window boxes. One woman's club furnished 
1,600 bean bags for a local playground. For health pur- 
poses people have given equipment for a dental clinic, 
drinking fountains^ paper cups and towels, and first-aid-to- 
the-injured boxes. The articles that mean beauty and joy 
and hapinness for children are too numerous even to list, 
but until superintendents, teachers, principals, and out- 
siders who see opportunities are more generous in making 
known what is needed and in suggesting ways that we can 

38 




ALGONQUIN CAMP: WHO WOULDN T BE ANEMIC: 



^^^^^^ 


PCP''*^HH 


■i>^^^ ^ f . 






i^^ #jlt'gr f. 












* • 



GIVEHS, SCHOOLS, CITY, CIVIC LEADERS, WORK TOGETHER FOR OPEN AIR FOR 

EVERYBODY 



ELIZABETH MCCORMICK MEMORIAL FUND: FOR CHICAGO CHILDREN 



PRIVATE GIVING 

help, we shall most of us fail to see continuous opportunity 
for giving to children through schools. 

To will makers and donors schools offer a permanency of 
investment. Few other forms of philanthropy can be sure 
to adapt themselves as conditions change. Public schools 
are pretty certain to adapt because they will be under pres- 
sure to do so. 

How Superintendents Would Invest Gifts 

Some superintendents are beginning to realize that people 
are ready to give if they only know what to give and whom 
to give it to. They have learned from mentioning casually 
something the schools need and having it eagerly furnished. 
And to make it easier for people to give they have occasion- 
ally listed needs in annual reports. The Hyde Park, 
Massachusetts, school report for 1910 gives the details of 
desirable improvements and additions for the schools, with 
the cost of starting and keeping up by commissioners or by 
outsiders. The superintendent estimates, for example, a 
school museum at $310; school gardens at $500, for annual 
running expenses. This is, however, unusual for a school 
report; and because so few superintendents tell us every 
year what they would like to have money for, we sometimes 
think they have no plans for spending extra donations from 
the outside. How far this is from being the case was proved 
by the returns which came from a questionnaire sent to 
superintendents by the Bureau of Municipal Research asking 
''Do will makers in your city remember your public schools?" 
and "Is your city ready to receive a gift of $10,000 for 
public schools?" 

We had been asked by a woman of moderate means who 
was making her will in a middle western city for suggestions 
about a bequest of $10,000 a year to benefit children under 
16 years of age in public schools. We passed it on to the 

39 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

men and women who should be best able to answer that 
question for their cities, and incidentally for the whole country. 

The replies which came from 142 city superintendents 
showed needs for lump sums of over $3,000,000 and annual 
maintenance funds requiring the income on $7,500,000. 
The national work suggested to reach 20,000,000 school 
children and 100,000,000 citizens would justify combined 
legacy foundations of $20,000,000. 

When superintendents stopped to summarize they found 
long lists of new buildings, new equipment, new services 
which they said their general publics are not yet prepared 
to furnish but which the children themselves ought to have. 
Athletic fields and playgrounds, for example, are needed in 
61 cities; school buildings in 47; equipment, vocational 
schools, medical and dental clinics, decorations, gymnasiums, 
school nurses, open air schools in many others. The list 
is long. Superintendents realize clearly that many of these 
needs are so fundamental to successful and eflficient schools 
that taxpayers must be taught to meet them. The school 
people do not want private gifts for school maintenance 
which ought to be forthcoming from taxpayers, but they do 
want in almost every case the power to demonstrate and 
prove to taxpayers the value of improvements. 

Our le\^ for educational purposes is at the limit; yet we constantly 
lose our best high school teachers from inability to pay them. We need 
decorations and apparatus which we cannot buy. I regret that our 
wealthy people do not remember these things (playgrounds and athletic 
fields) in their wills. 

Innumerable things could be done which cannot be obtained through 
taxation. 

The citizens of this community can be depended upon to maintain and 
support an industrial or trade school, but it is a problem to secure the 
plant. 

The philanthropic side of open air schools — physicians, nurses, dental 
clinics — should be privately supported until the city takes over the whole. 

40 



PRIVATE GIVING 

One superintendent, describing how outsiders might start 
much-needed kindergartens, says: "I feel sure, after having 
founded kindergartens upon this complete system, public 
sentiment would be so educated that no difficulty would 
be found in providing for their support." 

The size of the city seems to have little bearing on the 
intensity or variety of things which superintendents feel 
should be done at once. This letter by a southern superin- 
tendent summarizes the way most schoolmen with 1,000 
or 500,000 children feel about private giving via schools: 

If a city of 15,000 should receive a gift of S10,000 for educational 
purposes its school authorities would feel that an educational millennium 
was at hand. . . . Your efforts toward directing benevolences to the 
public schools of the country should meet with the hearty approval of 
the friends of education everywhere. Pretty nearly every school super- 
intendent in America could write you a book in reply to your questions. I 
merely wish to add to my answers the suggestion that benevolences to 
pubhc schools, if they are ever secured, should be directed to the erection 
of school plants and the maintenance of institutions and departments 
not possible from the revenues obtained through the ordinary channels. 

"I am glad you are agitating this question," writes another 
superintendent, ''and I hope something may be done to 
convince our very rich men that the public schools are as 
much in need of some of their money as the colleges and 
technical schools." 

The lack of material relief and of scholarships that will 
enable worthy children to finish their education is men- 
tioned'in so many cities that it seems almost a general need. 
But most of the investments with nation-wide value sug- 
gested by superintendents — investments which will prob- 
ably not be appreciated for years by taxpayers — have to do 
with publicity and investigation about school administra- 
tion and methods, such as "a complete and comprehensive 
record of every child born; standardization of the courses 

41 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

of study; endowed agencies for the study of school problems 
in poor sections of the country; promotion of educational 
standard units and educational scientific management; pub- 
lication of reports; special investigations of physical condi- 
tions, delinquence and vocational training; any amount for 
research and general information; for model schools; to dis- 
seminate more information among those who would be 
interested if they understood the needs; to collect data as 
to modern movements and how to bring the right thing to 
pass." 

Not only comparatively large lump sums and annual in- 
stalments could be invested to demonstrate desirable school 
improvements or give relief through schools, but infinite 
numbers of small things could be used — easy and attractive 
gifts as the superintendents list them: 

Small gifts of from $25 to $100 for lantern slides, moving picture films, 
dental clinics, concerts; annual instalments for excursions to historical 
and literary places near Boston. . . . Fund for prizes for essays, decla- 
mation, or debating societies. . . . Victrola and records for each school 
building; $500 a year for library purposes; health instruction through 
nurses in the homes; a limited sum to endow vocational training schools, 
etc. 

There is no question but superintendents are ready to 
invest gifts, small and large, without relieving taxpayers of 
legitimate duties. 

The Charlottte R. Schmidlapp Fund 

Let me tell you what it is and does, then you can judge 
for yourself the value of this giving. Mr. J. G. Schmidlapp, 
of Cincinnati, founded the bureau bearing his name in 
memory of his daughter by a gift of $250,000, which sup- 
ports three departments of a Bureau for Women and Girls. 

The educational department assists individual girls to 
secure an education. This is scholarship giving, careful 

42 



PRIVATE GIVING 

record being kept of each girl applying, her family status, 
former employment, and references. Each beneficiary 
promises to repay the amount advanced her by the Fund, 
not as a legal obligation, but because of her desire to extend 
the same privilege to others. 

The employment department places over 1,000 women 
and girls a year in positions that seem most suitable after 
personal interviews. Record is kept of these girls, the 
length of time they stay in each position, their earnings and 
reasons for leaving. Each firm, with which arrangements 
have been made previously, also keeps a record of the 
applicants sent by the Bureau. 

The third branch of the Bureau is the vocation depart- 
ment, which, in cooperation with the board of education and 
the Child Labor Committee, is watching every child who 
leaves school at the age of fourteen years. The details of 
this work are given on page 303. 

Everything done by the three departments of the Schmid- 
lapp Bureau is aimed toward the solution of vital problems 
which schools and employers are facing. The records, care- 
fully kept, are so much clear light on a complicated industrial- 
educational situation. While helping thousands of girls each 
year to get positions, or to finish equipping themselves for 
industry, the Bureau's work has a permanent bearing on 
school administration, child labor, and vocational guidance. 
Is such giving worth while? 

For blank forms and information concerning the three 
branches of work, write to the Schmidlapp Bureau, 200 
Union Trust Building, Cincinnati. 

Shoes and Clothes for Poor Children 

It is not always such a simple proposition as in the one city 
where the superintendent writes, "Mr. R. helps our needy." 

43 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

In a civilized comnuiiiity there is no excuse for a child's 
missing school because he has no shoes or clothing. In the 
first place, the teacher, knowing his general condition, can 
guess pretty well why he stays at home, investigate and 
report. Where there is a truant olhcer he is not only for the 
purpose of returning truants, but of finding out why children 
are absent. Yet there are to-day thousands of children out 
of school for want of shoes and clothes, and superintendents 
write, for exjunple: 

\N"e need from $300 to SolX) a year io use for Tioody boy^ and girls. 

We could spend S2lX1 a year for shoes and elothing to enable poor chil- 
dren to attend school; §oO for sptvtades for the scune purpose. 

We could use SolX) a year to pay for eye glasses and proj^er treatment 
of various diseases of children and of indigent parents, atul much larger 
amounts to provide school luuchevms and dotliiug for such children. 

As a rule there is no school organization corresponding to 
the church's neetilework guild, which supplies garments when 
needed, but some mothers' clubs and teachers' societies have 
been securing the necessary relief for their schools. Of course, 
where there is any sort of relief agency it ought to be enough 
for the teacher simply to refer a needy case to this office. 

It frequently, not always, happens that there are funda- 
mental remedies to stop that poverty which is making the 
child stay out of school. In Philadelphia, where the Biu'eau 
of Compulsory Education cooperates with three organized 
charities and two big church benevolent societies, "not only 
do they furnish clothing, food, shoes, and coal, but frequently 
the entire family is benefited. Parents and cliildren are 
sent to hospitals, families are persuaded to move into better 
homes, and work is secured." 

TMiere there is no special agency, occasionally a woman's 
club has taken up the work of relief for schools. The Civic 
Club in Kalamazoo maintains a clothing-and-shoe fund 
for needv school children. It requires not much monev, 

44 



PRIVATE GIVING 

and little time and energy, to collect old clothes from those 
who have clothers they want to get rid of and to pass thern on 
to the schools that need thern. The alurnni of some schools 
have formed themselves into relief societies giving a yearly 
?jazaar to raise funds and sending out appeals for clothing. 
An interesting relief organization is the Public School 
Children's Aid Society of Quincy. "Each of the twelve 
schools of the city is looked after by one of the Protestant 
churches," writes a minister. "We raise money for the 
fund in various ways, from giving outright to public enter- 
tainments in the high school auditorium. This fund is at 
the command of those detailed by the churches to look after 
their schools. The money goes principally for shoes and 
clothing. All the Protestant churches are interested in this 
plan, and the Jews and Christian Scientists, and I think it 
lias been a good thing for the churches as well as for the 
schools." 

Is it advisable to Btart local relief work when organizations exist solely 

for tPiat piirjjose? 
Where relief agencies are basing their appeals on the efficiency of their 

work, should teachers and principals be forced constantly to appeal 

to other sources for clothing? 
Don't teachers know about the rehef agencies? 

How can the rehef agencies afford to let the schools go elsewhere for help? 
Has your relief agency a school visitor who gets lists of needy children 

from principals? 
Does the central office of the relief agency keep record of the schools 

whicli are attended by children of their families? 
Does the agency emphiasize its school cooperation? 
Do churches offer rehef to the public schools of their districts? 

One Public School Relief Association 

One of the outlying boroughs of New York, like many 
cities and towns, has no charitable agency. The Public 
School Relief Association in Queens is composed entirely 

45 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

of te-achers, members of mothers' clubs, and three laymen 
from the vicinity of each school. This body was organized 
at the suggestion of the district superintendent, who in- 
vestigated cases of truancy and found that many were 
caused by lack of shoes and clothing. Monthly meetings 
are held at the school for business discussions and entertain- 
ments by teachers and children. The yearly income and 
expenditure on relief for two school districts is about $1,000, 
one-third of which is guaranteed by the teaching force and 
the rest by the mothers. 

When a child needs clothing, application is made person- 
ally or through his parent or teacher to the principal of the 
school. The case is then investigated by a member of the 
committee for that district, who issues an order on a local 
dealer with whom previous arrangements have been made. 
At the end of each month all the schools send to the treasurer 
of the organization their bills and duplicate vouchers for 
clothing purchased. After careful auditing by another 
committee the dealers are paid. During the year there are 
purchased about 600 pairs of shoes and 500 garments. 
Through the home visiting of the Association's committee, 
many family readjustments have been brought about and 
funds secured for special needs. 

When the winter season closes and demands for relief are 
less pressing the Association takes up new interests. It 
began playground work with tent equipment supplied by 
the district superintendent. Local mothers' clubs of two 
districts, to raise funds for playgrounds, a supervisor, and 
apparatus, gave entertainments which resulted in a success- 
ful season of six weeks. 

What One Outside Relief Agency Has Done for Schools 

For over a half-century the New York Association for 

Improving the Condition of the Poor has been emphasizing 

46 



PRIVATE GIVING 

the advantages of close school cooperation. Its work con- 
tains many suggestions for relief agencies in cities large or 
small. Long before general interest in schools was even 
pretended, in 1845, a list of rules for visitors included the 
instruction: "Endeavor by systematic attention to the edu- 
cation of the children of the poor through the aid of the 
public schools to fit them for the proper pursuits of life and 
to be introduced into society as industrious and useful 
citizens." 

Eight years later the Association led in a successful 
legislative campaign which ended in provision for the care 
of idle and truant children. The first two truant officers 
in the borough of Manhattan were secured by the Associa- 
tion in 1860, and two years later defects in the enforcement 
of the law were shown by citing cases of children not reached 
by these officers. 

To this relief agency is due the extensive system of vaca- 
tion schools which has resulted from the first two opened 
in 1894 and conducted by the Association for three years. 

At the beginning of the school year, 1905, teachers re- 
ceived from the relief department a little bulletin stating 
that it wished to cooperate with them and asking that school 
children in undesirable home conditions be referred for in- 
vestigation. 

A study of the school children guests at the Association's 
fresh air summer camp supplied the first estimates about 
children with physical defects. The percentage of children 
found to need attention was proved even larger by the de- 
partment of health's extensive examination, which showed 
that thousands were physically unable to meet school re- 
quirements. A committee was thereupon organized by the 
Association with expert investigators to find, from the board 
of health records, children needing medical, dental, or ocular 

care and better nourishment; to visit such children in their 

47 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

homes in order to ascertain whether their need arose from 
deficient income or from other causes; to secure proper treat- 
ment, where possible, either from parents, from pubHc free 
cHnics, or other estabHshed agencies, and the proper physical 
surroundings for children while at school, playgrounds, baths, 
etc. An effort was also made to establish a system of school 
records and reports which would automatically disclose sig- 
nificant facts regarding backward pupils, truancy, regularity 
of attendance, registered children not attending, sickness 
and physical defects. The third purpose of the committee 
was to "utilize available information regarding school needs 
so as to stimulate public interest and thus aid in securing 
adequate appropriations to meet school needs." Investi- 
gations, lectures in public schools, and talks to teachers' and 
other associations, newspaper articles and magazine stories, 
were the first work of this committee. A comparative study 
of the methods employed in 100 cities to record, classify, and 
present significant school information was later published, 
entitled School Reports and School Efficiency, by David S. 
Snedden and William H. Allen. 

A handbook was prepared for teachers which located dis- 
pensaries and hospitals and gave directions how to use them. 
Unfortunately, it was never published, though the city's 
health department later issued a directory of the same 
agencies. Because so many children were found with 
defective teeth, one member of the conmiittee opened at the 
Children's Aid Society a free dental clinic. 

The most significant result of the committee's work was 
increased public interest in the physical examination of 
school children and the support given through budget hear- 
ings to the health department's request for more physicians. 
The many indirect results included the opening of a second 
free dental clinic, a thorough investigation into the question 
of school feeding and sanitary improvements, agitation for 

48 



PRIVATE GIVING 

playgrounds, ventilation and the disuse of dry sweeping, and 
bathing parties for 20,000 children taken to the puljlic baths 
in groups of from 50 to 200. 

During all this investigation and the activities resulting 
the Association was specializing and perfecting through the 
relief department the work with school children and teach- 
ers. About 1,000 families a year are referred for relief 
by school officials, and 66% of aU other cases are fam- 
ilies having school children. The amount of material 
relief given to these families approximates S60,000 a 
year. 

Every summer in its fresh air work the Association tries 
to accommodate as many school children as possible. 
Teachers and principals are notified early in the spring that 
the Association will be glad to have the names of children 
who are especially in need of an outing. About 2,000 a j^ear 
are given a nine days' outing at Sea Breeze, while for 9,000 
or 10,000 more a day at the seashore is provided. The open- 
air school at Sea Breeze Hospital for children with bone 
tuberculosis, which has a teacher from the department of 
education, was the first in the country. 

From this record of long and multiform cooperation with 
schools the Association's feeling is clear — that the most 
valuable members of the families to deal with are the children, 
and that public schools are natural means of reaching them. 

Chariti/s Broader Opportunity 

In Elmira all the social, civic, and philanthropic agencies 
combine under the Social Service League, which, with relief 
as its foundation, has broadened, absorbed, launched boldly 
into various supplementary activities until it has become more 
than a relief agency — the clearing house for social service 
throughout the city. One outcome of this relief society's 

49 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

broader interest was the preliminary medical examination 
of school children by the Academy of Medicine. 

In Harrisburg the Associated Charities, with a membership 
largely of men, aside from providing food, clothing, and eye- 
glasses, has been interested particularly in the night schools, 
and is helping to bring about the opening of school buildings 
as social centers. 

Besides starting playgrounds and social centers, the 
Associated Charities in Waterbury, cooperating with the 
Anti-Tuberculosis League, secured the use of anti-tubercu- 
losis textbooks by the upper grades of all schools. The 
Charities are now cooperating with the board of education 
in establishing an open air school and in securing special 
instruction for defective children who, the teachers say, are 
impeding the progress of the class. Principals are encour- 
aged to refer all cases of destitution. 

A relief society does its relief work better when it has the 
close cooperation of other organizations interested in the 
physical and mental uplift of children. With the fund of 
information about ''causes" which is contained in case rec- 
ords of school children's families the relief society has an 
excellent opportunity to point out next steps in big, pre- 
ventive, constructive work. The innumerable " whys " that 
only the school can answer and correct, the innumerable re- 
lief cases in the making that only the school can discover, 
possible readjustments, possible closer connections between 
teacher and parent — these are the relief agency's broader 
opportunity. 



IV 

SHORT CUTS TO PUBLICITY ABOUT SCHOOL NEEDS 

A "Twenty Questions" Index to School Needs 

1. Does the school report interest you? 

2. How often do you visit a school in session? 

3. Do you talk "shop" to school teachers? 

4. When is the school budget voted? 

5. How much money is spent on schools? 

6. How many children ought to be in school? 

7. How many are in school? 

8. Are children prepared for the vocations which they are likely to 

enter, because of industrial conditions in their cities? 

9. Is there medical and dental examination of children in school each 

year? 

10. How many children are repeating their grades this year? 

11. Are salaries high enough to secure efficient teachers? 

12. Is any one watching child labor enforcement? 

13. Is any one interested in school sanitation and decorations? 

14. Have school children the right kind of physical training or organ- 

ized athletics? 

15. Are there hospitals or clinics where children can receive physical 

and dental treatment? 

16. Do libraries and museums cooperate, or send loans to rural schools? 
' 17. Do ministers ever preach on school questions? 

18. How many parents' associations are there? 

19. What is being done by schools and outside agencies for defective 

children — cripples, blind, deaf, mentally deficient, chronic truants? 

20. What does the superintendent say the schools need most? 

Fostering Citizen Interest in School Reports 

It probably never occurred to you that a school report 
could be really interesting. They do exist, fascinating, help- 

5 51 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

ful ones, far more than mere statements of statistics for the 
past year. Increasing emphasis is being put on the need for 
humanizing and making uniform school reports ''to secure 
more rehable information concerning the schools through 
better reports on the part of superintendents and other 
school officials." Every change which makes a report an 
attractive story with a meaning for the layman increases 
the superintendent's opportunity for getting at his con- 
stituency and the parents of his children. The form of 
reports, the arrangement, the use of illustrations and charts, 
the type, the number and kind of statistics, are always im- 
portant, but especially so when considered as a means of 
interesting the layman. 

To hold the parent or the interested outsider who wants 
to know how he can do something about schools, superinten- 
dents have found that it promotes good feeling and prepares 
the way for future requests for assistance to acknowledge 
the part taken by outside agencies. The superintendent 
in Newport says, "I always give credit where possible for 
anything done by our citizens for the schools." The super- 
intendent in Waco has a section in his report, "Mothers' 
Clubs and the Club Women," giving the details of women's 
interest which has resulted in decorations, drinking foun- 
tains, pianos, flagpoles, and improvements in school grounds. 

The Bureau of Municipal Research made an analysis of 
70 school reports for the year 1910. The superintendent in 
Adams says that parents flock to the schools to become in- 
telligently interested; Leadville tabulates the number of 
parents' visits for the last three years; Salt Lake City notes 
the increased number of visits and resultant increased at- 
tendance and enrollment of pupils; Cedar Rapids tabulates 
the number of visits of teachers to homes and of parents to 
schools; Columbus speaks of parents' associations which 

cooperate to treat defective pupils and of physicians who 

52 



PUBLICITY AND SCHOOL NEEDS 

give practical hygiene talks at mothers' and teachers' meet- 
ings; Hyde Park mentions that the parents' association of 
100 members bought a projection outfit for two schools and 
decorated the walls of school rooms; Pasadena speaks of 
the parents' clubs which have formed child study circles 
to cooperate with teachers; Decatur thanks the Mothers' 
Club which conducted medical and dental examinations in 
one school; Mt. Vernon notifies parents by printed cir- 
culars concerning changes and innovations in school work; 
Portsmouth writes that the Civic League conducted an 
evening school. But out of 70 reports only 21 made even 
brief acknowledgment of help received from the outside. 

Besides having their cooperation officially recognized, 
citizens want to know what is the superintendent's ideal 
for the schools, the points of special excellence and signifi- 
cance in the system, the most deplorable gaps, and, above 
all, the most necessary changes. Though a citizen may be 
greatly interested in schools and may have current informa- 
tion about school work, it is hard for him to know what to 
do to-morrow and the next day, how to begin, whom to con- 
sult, whose advice to follow. With this principle in mind 
the trustees of Bryn Mawr College have arranged a list 
of gifts with their prices, which includes everything that 
the college can possibly want in the way of endowment, 
buildings, equipment, gardens, and statues. It does not 
leave out any factor, any detail of a complete picture which 
stimulates and guides the desire to give, while obviating 
undesirable '^gift horses" whose mouths may not be safely 
inspected. The same may be done for any school system. 
Horace L. Brittain, when superintendent in Hyde Park, 
outlined in his report school needs in order of their im- 
portance, giving the cost of installation and of running ex- 
penses for one year, or for a certain number of years, until 

the experiment should be taken over by the school board. 

53 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 



HOW HYDE park's SUPERINTENDENT LISTED 


SCHOOL NEEDS 


Improvements and additions 


Expenses 
of equip- 
ment 


Annual 
running 
expenses 


Appropria- 
tion neces- 
sary for 
1911-1012 
on account 
of equip- 
ment 


Appropria- 
tion neces- 
sary for 
1911-1912 
on account 
of running 
expenses 




$250 




$250 












$200 




$200 








500 




500 








Extra liKhtint; aud ventilating in physical labora- 


50 




50 










1,300 

to 
2,000 




1,300 

to 
2,000 












75 




37.50 










1,000 




500 










1,000 




500 








250 

to 

1,000 


400 


250 

to 

1,000 


200 






Household science in High School 


250 


400 


250 


200 






150 




75 








100 


150 


100 


75 








SOO 


1,000 


800 


500 








310 




310 








Projection apparatus 


300 




360 






l.OtX) 

to 
1,500 


500 

to 

1,000 


1,000 

to 
1,.500 


250 
to 




500 






500 




250 








5CX) 




500 








Part-tinie inilustrial school 




750 




375 






Increased equipment of textbooks and classroom 


GOO 




GOO 








liaising maximum of grade teachers' salaries to 




500 




250 






School libraries 


200 




200 








Full time for Truant Officer 




400 




200 






Totalis 


0.470 

to 
S,420 


6,S25 

to 
7,325 


6,770 

to 
8,720 


3.G12.50 
to 




3,SG2.50 



54 



PUBLICITY AND SCHOOL NEEDS 

In making their annual reports superintendents are asking 
themselves : 

What have other cities done about the things I am especially interested in 
— school gardens, for instance, or a free dental clinic? 

Is there ever a danger of reporting too many needs, since in this way I 
make it possible for people to choose the type of cooperation in 
which they are most interested and also show how complete is my 
100% picture of what schools need? 

Is it wise to rank the lists of needs according to their urgency, thus 
directing outside help to the most pressing matters? 

In listing needs can I show in my report (a) first cost, (b) maintenance 
cost, (c) whether proper public charge, (d) or suitable object for 
private giving, (e) whether money or (/) service is needed? 

Is not an index indispensable in the complicated modern school report 
to enable the outsider to find at once the particular topics in which 
he is most interested? 

Is it more sensible to make my constituency think that the schools 
are perfect or to give a frank statement of needs and recognized 
inefl&ciencies? 

Am I afraid that if outside interest is encouraged people will suggest 
impossible, impractical things? This sort of interest is going to do 
harm if it is not brought out into the open and directed. There is 
cooperative energy there which needs a program. It is safer to 
have open criticism than simmering misunderstanding. As Prof. 
Simon N. Patten says, "It is better to support in an almshouse a 
man who cannot earn $1.50 a day than to have him at large in the 
community." 

Can I not contrast special needs which are the outcome of our local 
situation with the ways such needs are met in other cities? 

The superintendent who is at odds with his board finds 
in his report and in newspaper publicity his best opportunity 
for so bringing out facts that cooperating agencies, inter- 
ested individuals, and the press may reach their own con- 
clusions, and personal elements may be avoided. A situation 
of this kind in one city recently called forth a newspaper 
story from a prominent minister in defense of the super- 
intendent whose dismissal had been ordered by an "over- 

55 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

conservative" board. In a new town where it is hard to 
start things the school report is the superintendent's oppor- 
tunity for interesting people and for disseminating informa- 
tion. 

Granted that reports can be made so attractive that they 
will be read, inviting cooperation in school reports means 
that teachers and parents are brought closer together and 
that school work is stimulated because the teachers feel that 
the head of the system is really interested in welcoming aid 
from outside. It means giving parents a wider vision of 
usefulness through schools, and of their part in bringing 
about school improvements, no matter how trivial. Suppose 
the superintendent says, ''My dear Mrs. Smith, if you come 
to visit our school to-morrow, and ask how you can be of 
use, you will hearten the teacher, encourage the pupils, stir 
up intelligent public opinion among your friends, and do 
yourself a world of good." Will not Mrs. Smith see a simi- 
lar opportunity when presented less personally in the annual 
report? 

In Houston the superintendent has interested a large 
number of business men in school work by educational 
banquets, for which this letter was sent out last year: 

You are cordially invited to attend a banquet of men interested in 
education in Houston, to be given at the Rice Hotel, Tuesday evening, 
March 28, beginning promptly at 7 o'clock. 

Incidentally, you are also invited to pay $1.00 for the same, just as 
all of us expect to do. 

If you know of any other men who are interested in education, and 
whom you would like to bring with you, you may do so, provided you 
notify us of your intention and see that the dollar is forthcoming in 
each instance. 

Those who have attended our former educational banquet will under- 
stand tliat the evening is to be given over to good-fellowship, with per- 
haps a little business at the close. The committee appointed at our 
last banquet will report at this one. 

We do not wish you to come unless you feel confident that you will 

56 



PUBLICITY AND SCHOOL NEEDS 

really enjoy it. If you do not accept this invitation we shall take it 
for granted that you lack either the time, the inclination, or the dollar. 
In either instance you will have our sympathy, and not the slightest 
offense will be taken. 

A little thirty-page booklet, called St. Louis Public Schools, 
served to give visitors at the National Education Asso- 
ciation Convention a bird's-eye view of that system. Why 
not have an attractive synopsis of school administration 
for distribution in your city? 

Newspapers and Superintendents 

Additional publicity about school needs and opportunities 
for cooperation is given through the press at the time the 
school report is published and throughout the year. Fre- 
quently the superintendent's report is printed in full, or a 
synopsis is prepared for the newspapers by the superin- 
tendent, who is thus sure of having the important points 
brought out. Through the newspapers of Marlborough the 
superintendent makes a strong plea for the formation of 
school and home associations, for parent visiting, and at- 
tendance at exhibits. He does not, however, suggest any 
next steps for getting these things done. In Lawrence an 
association of teachers publishes weekly a series of articles 
called Pedagogues and Parents, taking up timely questions 
and recommending definite ways in which parents may get 
in touch with school work. 

The aim is to inform the public as to what the schools are trying to 
do, why they are trying to do it, what the schools need, where the schools 
are weak, that the pubhc through its intelligent cooperation may help 
schools. 

These teachers, feeling that parents "ought not to sit 
down and wait for this information to be imparted to 
them," constantly urge mothers and fathers to visit the 

57 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

schools and explain that no formality is involved, and a 
''cordial welcome from the teacher and a hearty although 
unspoken greeting from the children are included." 

Most cities have little difficulty about getting school news 
into the papers. In Jamestown the superintendent wrote: 

We have the ready cooperation of the city press. The editors are al- 
ways ready to give us any needed space, and occasionally editorials call 
attention to special needs. One of the daihcs sends a reporter to the 
school nearly every day for news items. 

The superintendent in Wausaw gives credit for the excel- 
lent system of medical inspection *'to a skilful presentation 
of facts through the newspapers/' while in another city, 
during a rather difficult situation when a corrupt govern- 
ment was blocking all attempts at progress, the superin- 
tendent, with the cooperation of the leading daily, was able 
to go ahead with needed reforms. In New York four lead- 
ing dailies publish school pages, columns, and sections. The 
superintendent in Elmira writes of making a personal call 
on editors, "talking the situation over with them, telling 
them just what I wished to do, and asking for their co- 
operation. In every case the editors assured me that they 
would be more than glad to use anything of general interest 
which I would furnish them." 

From editors and those who understand the technique of 
using type the schoolman may draw suggestions for the set- 
up of his report, for the arrangement of headings, charts, 
and photographs that will best tell his story. A bulletin by 
the Bureau of Municipal Research, The Improving Repu- 
tation of School Reports, gives instances of the best form 
in some seventy reports. 

The Schoolman as Advertiser 

Information may be also disseminated by a school bulletin. 
Houston, for example, publishes a School Mirror, which every 

58 



PUBLICITY AND SCHOOL NEEDS 

pupil may take home. It gives a chatty story about dif- 
ferent schools, pointing out where each excels, noting 
athletic competitions, and reprinting prize essays. The 
Elmira School Bulletin, published monthly by the school 
board, contains suggestions for teachers and for parents, 
school notes, and reports of parents' meetings. Ithaca's 
Our Public Schools and Alameda's School Bulletin, both 
monthly publications by the boards of education, are in- 
teresting reading. 

Exhibits in schools gather all the parents together once in 
a while to see what the children have been doing. '' School 
Exhibit Is Attended by Thousands," said the newspapers in 
Altoona when it was opened with a social program prepared 
by teachers and pupils. In Selma's annual exhibit are in- 
cluded specimens of writing taken at random, maps, basketry, 
cardboard construction work, paper folding, sloyd, sewing, 
and woodwork. In other words, the purpose of the exhibit 
is to demonstrate as far as possible the routine work of the 
schools. A further purpose of the exhibit is to create an 
opportunity for teachers and school authorities to become 
acquainted with the patrons and friends of the schools. 
; A superintendent, speaking recently about how he secured 
outside cooperation, said that it takes very little time and 
personal supervision on his part to keep going with a definite 
program an affiliated organization which is once started and 
on its own feet. A parent-teacher association working with 
a consistent policy requires only a small amount of direc- 
tion, given perhaps through a teachers' association or 
through the superintendent as a director. Superintendents 
must, however, have a strong enough connection with 
outside organizations to regulate the work done. ''We 
move slowly," says many an outside agency, "because we 
are afraid of going beyond the extent of our usefulness, and 
we do not wish to be considered rash." There is no reason 

59 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

why, when a quick campaign is necessary, activity should be 
blocked by a tortoise-like group accustomed to move slowly. 

As one superintendent put it, the schoolman must ad- 
vertise as well as the business man who is trying to secure 
patrons. "Parents and the general public are our patrons. 
We must keep them in touch somehow with what we want to 
do." 

This is well expressed by the superintendent in Trenton, 
writing of the school needs which are most pressing: 

Probably the most fundamental need is the awakening of the minds 
and hearts of our citizens and taxpayers to the needs and possibihties 
of a really efficient system of public schools and the enkindling of a 
constant zeal on the part of Catholic and Protestant, Jew and Gentile, 
rich and poor, aristocrat and common people, to have a system of 
pubhc schools that will render the largest and best possible service to 
the city. For this purpose we should need a fund ample to support a 
school advocate, a sort of press agent or educational evangelist who, 
by articles in the newspapers, by pubHc addresses, by special letters to 
parents in various languages sent with the children to their homes, by 
personal conferences with individuals or groups of citizens and in other 
ways, would do all that might be done to establish the right ideal of 
the function of the pubhc school in a democracy and secure from all the 
people active, Uberal support and cooperation in making the schools all 
that they ought to be for the progressive reahzation of that ideal. 

The superintendent in Selma has repeatedly offered his 
wares to the parents, throwing open wide the doors of the 
schools by this letter: 

To My Patbons, — I am inclosing herewith a copy of my daily 
schedule of study. The purpose of this is twofold. First, I want every 
parent to feel free to visit class work at any period during the day, and 
this will enable any one to tell just when to come to see language, read- 
ing, arithmetic, etc. Second, this schedule will inform you exactly as to 
what classes recite each day, and you may thus be able to keep an eye 
on the child's preparation at home. 

I would hke to go further and say that 3^ou are invited, even requested, 
to visit our work at any time you choose. It is especially necessary that 
you see those classes at work in which your boy or girl gets poor marks. 

60 



PUBLICITY AND SCHOOL NEEDS 

And lastly, it will aid materially the progress of your child if you will 
kindly see that he is in school every day. One day's absence cannot be 
made up, though the work is done at home or during extra hours by the 
teacher, because the child loses sequence of work and continuity of thought 
which is beyond recall. 

The superintendent in Dayton gives on his letter head 
special office hours — "For Parents, Tuesdays, 6.30 to 8.15 
P.M." Through school reports, exhibits of work done, news- 
papers, and personal or advisory connections with outside 
organizations superintendents have done their advertising, 
and according to their success have the schools benefited. 

Several superintendents have explained that the interest 
of citizens in their cities is limited by the lack of school funds 
and by the economic connection of schools with general 
prosperity. "We can count on the support of citizens as 
soon as the financial situation will justify our board in 
undertaking improvements." The superintendent in South 
Carolina writes that "public school interest is deep and 
wide spread. If the next five cotton crops sell at five cents, 
unprecedented educational development will most certainly 
follow." If constant measuring of schools by a money 
standard and emphasis on budgets seems to you pecuniary 
and distasteful, remember that every advance step means a 
school budget increase. Anything which cannot eventually 
be proved "worth its salt" to the common council or board 
of estimate will inevitably languish in the hands of outsiders 
and superintendents. When a need for increased appro- 
priation arises the superintendent who has steady support 
from the outside, besides his board of education, finds him- 
self better able to do for his schools what he sees should be 
done. 

School Inquiries 

Because of criticism from those inside and outside the 

school system has come the need for accurate, constantly re- 
el 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

curring statements through press comments, school reports, 
and special studies to show what the schools are doing, what 
they ought to do, and how they can be made to work with 
greatest efficiency. School inquiries like those for Newton, 
Greenwich, Dobbs Ferry, Syracuse, Wisconsin, and New 
York City have shown how helpful may be the right kmd of 
constructive criticism. The time will come when a com- 
munity will be considered backward if a thorough exami- 
nation of its school mechanism has not been made. The 
Tribune, in September, 1911, wrote of New York's inquiry, 
then under way: 

If public education has got into any ruts, this inquiry should show 
the people what the ruts are and how to lift the schools out of them. 
No matter how well the schools here are conducted, the stimulus of in- 
telligent outside criticism will be sure to be beneficial. 

The principle of having school inquiries conducted by out- 
side agencies is not new. In 1881 the Citizens' Association of 
Chicago set its educational committee to work on a general 
inquiry into the system of public schools. They took up 
four distinct problems, discussed the present situation, and 
suggested changes in legislation and increased appropriation. 
William H. Allen said recently: 

For the first time in the history of educational discussions in the United 
States, we are getting a democratic basis for the consideration of school 
problems, where the able man can by reporting facts as to retardation, 
physical examination, or arrangement of curricula earn higher rank as an 
educator than the superintendent of a large city school who neither 
seeks nor admits the truth. Inquiry and challenge being in the air, 
editorials in newspapers and magazines have raised questions in the 
minds of the parents, taxpayers, mayors, etc. Each schoohnan has 
come to feel that until he has explained the situation of liis schools to 
his own constituency he is on the defensive. 

School inquiries have been proposed by boards of educa- 
tion, by money voting bodies, public education associations, 

62 



PUBLICITY AND SCHOOL NEEDS 

boards of trade, newspapers, teachers, women's clubs, and 
superintendents themselves. In Amherst the School Al- 
liance has taken upon itself the burden of conducting a 
whole school inquiry. There is no reason why an outside 
organization cannot act as a constant school inquiry by 
engaging experts when necessary, bringing to bear the ex- 
perience of other cities and using the information of years 
of constant watching and intimate acquaintance with school 
affairs. But the Bureau of Municipal Research writes: 

Potentially — the best school investigator is the superintendent who 
wants to know his problem and his product. 

Potentially — the best tester of a class is the teacher in daily contact 
with that class wishing to know his or her problem and product. 

The Russell Sage Foundation has stimulated veritably 
hundreds of self-inquiries, by offering to tabulate and inter- 
pret, at its own expense, material collected on the proper 
blanks. 

There are certain fundamental principles on which an in- 
quiry by school officials or outside experts should be based. 
"The inquiry's plan and method should be explained to the 
public over and over again; the inquiry should start with 
problems uppermost in the public mind. As rapidly as con- 
clusive facts are obtained, and as rapidly as forward steps 
are possible, reports should be made to the school and to 
the public. Inquiries should be made obviously construc- 
tive from the first day — each forward step taken by the 
school brings new needs and new facts to light. No 
more should be reported at one time than the public can 
understand. School officials should be publicly put on 
record as to each subject or field reported upon by the 
inquiry." 

A thorough inquiry is a practical preliminary to out- 
lining a program of school cooperation by outside agencies. 

63 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

Making School N^cws Easy to Use 

During the last two years siiperinteiulents of schools, 
other educators, municipal officials, and the chief news- 
papers in cities of 7,000 inhabitants and over have re- 
ceived over 200 post card bulletins and small folders on all 
kinds of school matters. This is the method of meeting a 
nation-wide opportunity which the Bureau of Municipal Re- 
search of New York is using to universalize best methods, 
new facts, and self-inquiry in all fields of municipal ad- 
ministration. 

The details of this method arc given here, not only be- 
cause it has brought results in many cities, but because it 
can be used by any woman's club or chamber of commerce 
to keep those citizens currently and progressively informed 
whose interest in school matters is desirable. The theory is 
that even the busiest person is pretty certain to read small 
cards giving one idea at a time. (Fig 3.) ]\Iany bulletins 
like those on school reporting, non-promotions, and medical 
inspection are the results of questionnaires which have been 
sent out to superintendents with the pronnse that the re- 
turns will be made available for all schoolmen. A random 
selection of Efficient Citizenship bulletins, reprints of news- 
paper comments on school questions in other cities generally, 
brings out these headings: 

Plan Aid for Retarded Pupils (St. Paul) ; Medical Inspec- 
tion of Rural Schools (, Philadelphia) ; Lessen Strain on 
Pupils' Eyes (New York); Publicity Helps Education's 
Cause (California); ''Chicago" is New Study in Chicago 
Schools (Chicago) ; Teachers Physically Fit (New York) ; 
Grammar School Proficiency (New York); Training the 
Infant Citizens (Philadelphia) ; Bad Air in Schools (Kansas 
City); Do Rural Schools Need Health Supervision? (New 

York); What Subject is More Important than Doubtful 

64 



W:;l You Write Us 
What Extent Dentistry In Y 
Is Licenced or UnJicensei 
Violators Of Li 



City 

rensed? 
Prosecuted? 



^Co^^ 



U,NL!CEN'SF.D DENTISTS 
Vdfl upon unliccnF^d denti/ 



<^-^ •'Oq_ 



^^^ 



c->^ ^-^ 






Se«- 



HYGIENE 



<f- 



N^ 









^■^ tSp ,\ft' 



^-^:.-^^>'' 









^ SCHOOL M.^0,,,^^^^ 

S^oo, Editor of The Glob. 
■^i'- '"ethatth. 
■'-"--J-ildren-s teeth""-' "°""°""^--' 
'"me piece of news when,, 

""yeonferenc. 



Will there 
"P «>.- matter of ,„.. 
VV.ll they ever ,. ^ 

present coim^' 

tocho' 



'^ya'-efoiagtohold 
tfeth. TH. :. 

"■■"'" certainly a tooth. 

3ny and 

be discussed at 

'"''"^ to take 



to 



iroslrationT 
'Jnder the 






f^A 



:rj:..^K-^ 









^'*'^^''^ 



:,# 



DENTAL HYGIENE CONFEEENCB AND EXHIBIT 



■*» -A 



1 Life BHg.. IS Eart 24th Street 
Mi; 12 -U, mo 



Qurlty OrganlsatioD Society 
Children 'e Aid Society 



Dental Hy^leiie Conncfl 
AsoocIatioD for JmproviD^ the 
Condition of the Poor 

Evening Meeting - See Newspaper Notices - Speakers: Senator Owen, 
Irving Fisher. Dr. Woods Hntchlnson, Dr. Lntber H. GuHck, 
Dr. George W. Goler, William Church Oebom, etc . 

Day-time StereopUcon Lectnree for ChikJran 



Fig. 3 

SOME STIMULATORS OF INTELLIGENT INTEREST 



PUBLICITY AND SCHOOL NEEDS 

Pupils? (Williamsport) ; The High School (Montclair) ; 
School the Year Round (Cleveland); Some Newspapers 
Which Value School News (Rochester) ; The Need for School 
Investigations (New York) ; Handicap Race Toward Gradu- 
ation (Hoboken). On the bulletins sent to newspapers is 
usually printed, '^Will an editorial on this help your city?" 

Four and eight page folders like The Improving Reputa- 
tion of School Reports; When Do, Why do, Where Do Chil- 
dren Fail f are also distributed widely, as are reprints of 
articles in school journals and abstracts of addresses. 

It costs about $9 to print a double postal card and $5 to 
send it to 500 superintendents in 52 states. Newspapers 
are often glad to furnish the matrix for reprinting what they 
have said about school work, so the expense of this sugges- 
tion-circulating is comparatively very small. Handy in size 
and unique in coloring and set-up, the bulletins do not im- 
press the receiver as formidable or onerous communications. 

The Bureau has kept on sending bulletins to schoolmen, 
without asking how many profit from them. Sometimes, after 
a hundred bulletins have been sent to him without a re- 
sponse, a superintendent will write for more information 
about some particular fact that has caught his attention, 
advise a uniform size and form for filing, or ask to have his 
school trustees placed on the mailing list. Eighteen months 
after a card was sent out asking some questions about non- 
resident pupils the answer came back from one superin- 
tendent who had evidently not been interested in that 
particular question until then. That the bulletins have 
met a need in many cities, sample letters from superinten- 
dents show: 

Altoona, Pa. — I appreciate very much the copies of Efficient Citizen- 
ship, which you have been forwarding to me from time to time. Some 
of the suggestions contained in these articles are being appUed in our 
Altoona schools. 

65 



111^1 ri Nil scTTOOi nn iPKKN 

Cleveiaxp, Ohio. — I havo to thank you for copy of Scfux^l Ston'csi, 
which is tsii^i^ji^stiYO and intoiiNstin^. C")ur ofUoo ha^^ onioitni a few aii- 
ditional oopii^. and wo shall probably not\i mori\ 1 oonjjratulato you 
upon this helpful stinuilus to oiluoational progivss. 

Dk.nvkr, Col. — I have Kvn inioiiding for somo tin\o to write you 
oxprx^ssina: nn- appnviation of the wonderful work which you are doina; 
in eonntvtion with the Ruri\'Ui. . . . As a result of your work 1 shall 
wrtainly exennse gre.-uer eare in the pivparation of the local report and 
have alri\ady niatle nunieivus chansji^s in the character of the statistics 
to be sr:\therv\l for another n^ix^rt. 

Caixsiut^g. III. — I wish l\en^ to thank you for copies of Ejfident 
Citi:(t)ship you have sojU nie. I ftvl that they contain most vaJuable 
infi>rmation and that they will bo of jiriwt help to nie in my work here. 

Ijttle Fali^, X. Y. — We desiiv to thank your Buivau for its monil 
supiHirt in lines of activity new to the public and for its nw^onable sug- 
gt^stions in taking up those lines. Our school manual, inspircti to some 
extent by your citizenship letters, will be forwanltxi to >ou. 

WiLMiNinxtx. X. C. — During the past year I have btvn excivdingly 
intert\<totl in the literature which you have st^nt me, and ai^suiv you that 
it ha* Ixvn of the givatost benefit. I have gotten some splendid idea*!, 
and hojx> you will i^mtinue ti> mail to mo whatever litoratuiv \ou ha\e. 

Special funds of from $50 to $10. (XX) ^lil^o the Dorothy 
Wliitnoy Riiui. page oo") havo boon givoit to the Buroaii 
for speoial sots of bullotiits. .V gift of $;^cX) was made to 
send out "follow-up" cards on the St. Ixiuis meeting of 
superintendents. 1912, The pin*pose of these cards was to 
give "one poiitt at a time, suggestions attd new facts that 
promise to be helpful to schoolmen throughout the eountrj'." 
The cards dealt with imiform methods of reporting with- 
drawals from school, overage children, non-promotions and 
failures, rural school problems, school inquiries, school 
census, school publicity, and steps in making an aiimial 
report . 

Of this tnethod of school work the Boston Transcript wrote 

in 1911. "This movement makes itself a sort of clearing 

house of everything new of value that is discovered to work 

well in ;iny part of the country." The Bureau's method 

GO 



PUBLICITY AND SCHOOL NEEDS 

has proved that proportionately large results can be secured 
by a small amount of money spent through some central 
agency to keep superintendents currently informed about 
the best things being done by schoolmen, no matter how 
obscure or small their schools. 

Any other outside agency can maintain this constant 
watchfulness of what is being done in other cities. Press 
comments, clippings from other cities, school reports, and 
letters from scPiool people give information which may be 
used to throw light on local situations. In New York, 
for example, suggestions from school reports in other cities 
have led to important changes in methods of reporting. 

Budget Exhibits 

Most people do not get a clear idea of what schools are 
doing when they read that the board of education is asking 
for 810,000 or .$25 for manual training and SI, 000 for 
special teachers. For the first, suppose you su?jstitute the 
sight of carved taborets, book racks, tables, shirtwaists, 
mechanical drawing plans, iron candlesticks, and home made 
bread, or charts showing a black section in a circle for the 
number of children who do not take part in making these 
things. For the second, suppose you substitute books used 
by h)lind children in learning to read, pictures of children 
singing, and perhaps an original musical composition. No 
one can look at, hear, and handle these things without a 
definite understanding of how most of that .S10,000, S2.5, 
and .$1,000 is going to be spent during the next twelve 
months. Very few people visit schools or see enough kinds of 
school work to comprehend even vaguely the thousand and 
one things that schools are doing. We receive a condensed 
and vivid impression through concrete objects and graphic 
representations by pictures and charts and figures. And 
6 67 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

the effect is the same whether the money involved is $100,000 
or $100. 

Any exhibit of school work is interesting and worth while, 
but no exhibit is quite so worth while or quite so unforget- 
able as a school exhibit which is combined with the story 
of what teachers and administrators want to do next year. 
That story can be told completely only at budget time. 
Suppose, for example, that vacation schools are tried ex- 
perimentally in your city and found to be very successful. 
Pictures and perhaps a demonstration of children doing 
raffia work at the budget exhibit show that clearly. "We 
need $10,000 more next year to give 20,000 more children 
this opportunity," says a chart. Supplementing this there 
is perhaps a talk by the director of vacation schools, or the 
superintendent of schools, who tells just what they want 
to do with the extra money. The public understands and 
approves. It says so through the newspapers and at tax- 
payers' hearings, and the extra vacation schools are easier to 
get. 

Of course a real budget exhibit does not limit itself to 
school material, but includes health, streets, finance, pav- 
ing, and police. There is nothing more thrilling than the 
yearly show held just before New York's budget is voted. 
You see, for example, a booth where measures with false 
bottoms and sides and hoppers made over-heavy by pieces 
of iron underneath are shown to wondering housekeepers. 
There is a model dental clinic with chair and equipment. 
The last word in motor fire engines and the Bertillon system 
of catching crooks are explained by city employees. Hun- 
dreds of processes, hundreds of acts being performed every 
day by 85,000 employees, are here demonstrated, explained, 
revealed to everybody. And there is no doubt about people 
being interested. Eight hundred thousand visits were paid 
during four weeks in New York, and thousands of columns 

68 



HOW SI 00 IS SPENT 



KEY 



feoc/ien Saloriei 7 Manual Troiniha 10 tTediMl Inspection II Pn'niinij 

O/ficiolj ondjon'tori 3 pvemng School '" ' 

Repairs B< fUrnitvrs 3 /neuron cg 
Supplioi s Tact Books 



. , l-4-GiijiPkctric Li<)ht 

IZ J ojiitor]' Supplies IS Water 
13 Transportarion 16 Rert of Hi<jh School 
17 Lectures 
IB Piano s-CtacK Care 
/3 Telephones 




(Courtesy of Robert L. Stevens Fund. Made for Hoboken's Budget Exhibit) 
Fig. 4 



ONE WAY HOBOKEN WAS INTERESTED IN SCHOOL EXPENDITURES 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

were given in the newspapers. When Hoboken had a bud- 
get exhibit under the joint auspices of the Board of Trade 
and the Stevens Fund for Municipal Research, one evening 
was devoted to schools. (Fig. 4.) It was a rainy night, and 
the exhibit was up four flights in a building without an 
elevator, yet 200 people were turned away by the fire 
guardians. In the spring of 1912 the Equal Franchise 
Society, a group of society women in Dobbs Ferry held a 
budget exhibit for five days in the town hall. There was 
more frank discussion of what the town needed during those 
days than there had been during five years. 

There is no better way than a budget exhibit to show the 
school's relation to other city departments, or where schools 
are not meeting 100% of the needs along special lines, or 
how outside agencies can supplement and cooperate effec- 
tively. Any group of men and women can get up a budget 
exhibit. It costs comparatively little, because a large part 
of the material can be furnished by the departments. In 
making charts, securing pictures and statistics, officials and 
reports will be of great assistance. The exhibit may be held 
in a school building, library, or town hall. It should, of 
course, be widely advertised by sign-boards and news items, 
and there should be informed persons to explain and guide. 
In Hoboken bright-colored handbills were distributed to 
the home-coming crowds at night. For information about 
budget making and budget exhibits write to the Bureau of 
Municipal Research, 261 Broadway, New York. For sug- 
gestions about school exhibits write also to the Russell Sage 
Foundation, 1 Madison Avenue, New York. 



PUBLICITY AND SCHOOL NEEDS 

[one WAT A PUBLIC EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 
AROUSED INTEREST IN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION] 

The Providence Public Education Association 
invites you to listen to an address by Mr. Arthur 
D. Dean, Chief of Division of Vocational Schools 
for New York State, on "The Educational Signifi- 
cance of the Manual and Household Arts," at 
Manning Hall, Friday, 31 ay 17th, at eight p. m. 

Annie H. Barus, Secretary. 



There are Forty-four cities in the United 
States having a population between 100,000 and 
500,000. 

Only Six of these cities give no instruction in 
either Manual Training, Sewing, or Cooking in the 
elementary (Primary and Grammar) grades of their 
Public Schools. 

Atlanta, Georgia 
New Orleans, Louisiana 
THESE SIX Memphis, Tennessee 

CITIES ARE Kansas City, Missouri 

ocranton, rennsylvania, and 

PROVIDENCE, R. I . 

Ask the three members representing your Ward 
in the School Committee, WHY Providence is the 
only northern city of the Forty-four without such 
teaching ? 

Ask the members representing your Ward in 
the City Council, WHY ? 

71 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

Does Your Town Know What You Are Doing for Schools? 

Do you buy a year book because it is interesting, helpful 
reading, or because you are loyal to your club? Every year 
scores of clubs and federations are recording their twelve 
months' experience in year book form. The pages number 
into the thousands, and each page is an opportunity to tell 
a story of big, interesting things, civic, artistic, philanthropic, 
so that hundreds of other women who are also thinking 
about big, interesting things will say, ''This is good; it 
will help me in my work." The stimulus and encourage- 
ment of a successful example always counts for much. Yet 
the average year book — like the school report until recently 
— is anything but inspiring. It is usually printed as cheaply 
as possible, without photographs or illustrations. The paper 
and type are poor. When you have glanced through it you 
feel that a necessary duty has been done. 

Georgia's, on the other hand, is a good example of a 
federation year book. It is prefaced by the president's 
recommendation for the early publication of the book "to 
serve as a guide to the year's work, to give access to depart- 
ment reports and the names of committee leaders." The 
year book's stories about work for schools are not only inter- 
esting, but are followed by stirring suggestions: 

Have all educational committees appoint a specific day on which pledges 
(voluntary) may be obtained for educational purposes. 

Every letter pertaining to club business deserves a reply, and a prompt 
one. 

Secure from local papers space in which clubs may create sentiment 
for general welfare work. 

Send your criticisms and suggestions about federation administration 
to your officers. 

I wish some true philanthropist would give enough money 
to get out a typically good standard year book, just as attrac- 

72 




COUNCIL OF JEWISH women: NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE DEMONSTRATION: PORTLAND 




TWENTIETH CENTURY CLUB: RENO: IN SCHOOLS NOW 




CIVIC FEDERATION OF NEW HAVEN: FOR MOTHERS 
OUTSIDERS PROMOTE DOMESTIC SCIENCE IN SCHOOLS 



PUBLICITY AND SCHOOL NEEDS 

tive as the latest best seller, just as helpful as a cook book 
or fashion magazine. 

The year's activity of the most public-spirited women in a 
town is something for the town to talk about and something 
the newspapers are glad to feature. Intermittent publicity 
during the year keeps the town interested in the problems 
women are tackling. Club publicity should begin early in 
the fall, when the program for the year's work is announced. 
News items need not always be given out by the club. If 
women are working quietly to avoid personal publicity they 
can at least keep the town interested in their object. But 
even the clubs which now find publicity of any kind distaste- 
ful should be convinced beyond question of its value by 
such testimony as this: 

Newburyport is only a small place with about a dozen school houses. 
The school committee had tried with more or less energy and with more 
or less success to improve the school houses. An indifferent public, and 
consequently an indifferent government, made progress slow. Four or 
five years ago the Woman's Club appointed a committee to investigate 
and report. We had no questionnaire, but in company with a member 
of the school committee made a house-to-house investigation, taking 
notes as we went. The report, which dealt chiefly with the sanitary con- 
ditions, was made at a business meeting. The schools were reported 
individually and in a matter-of-fact way. We took care to have reporters 
present, and the details were published in the daily papers with big head- 
lines. The Club then appointed a committee to lay the facts and recom- 
mendations before the city council. The committee sent a written com- 
munication and reinforced it with their presence and addresses. This 
again was reported in full in the newspapers. This was enough to start 
public opinion, and it was kept alive by constant reports in the club 
meetings, by notices in the papers, and by personal prodding of the city 
council. The school committee were ready with help whenever necessary. 
The council responded, of course, to public opinion, and in the course 
of a year or two several thousand dollars had been spent on repairs. 
Much more needs to be done, but interest has been aroused, which is 
the important thing. 

With regard to the new school house, the need was emphasized all 

73 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

through the above work, aiui finally culminated in a mothers' meeting, 
where there were addresses and tliseussions bearing on the subject. This 
was followed by a petition which was signed by every mother in the 
district. Perhaps I ought not to claim that we secureii the new building, 
for it would have come some day anyway, but I do think we helped to 
get it sooner. 

The two most A-aluable suggestions which I can make from our work 
are, first, the value of publicity, and, second, the importance of working 
with, and not in antagonism to the city authorities. 

Siififragists have discovered innumerable ways, some of 
them ingenious, of advertising their work. Pamphlets, maps, 
posters, rubber stamps, blotters, post cards, badges, ai*e sold 
and given away to let the town know what women are doing. 
One advertisement reads: "So great is the resourcefulness of 
suffragists in devising means of educating the public on suf- 
frage that nearly every state association and local league 
has attractive supplies for sale which are useful mainly to 
the local association or league. Are you not looking for 
some of the articles advertised below for your local work?" 
There are means equally successful of letting cities know 
about open air schools or playgrounds. 

In Chillicothe, during the "health day" campaign, "local 
newspapers are kept supplied with copy bearing on these 
subjects, and are very generous in supporting these move- 
ments." In another city " many articles in the papers about 
schools have stirred up a good deal of feeling." Some clubs 
have publicity committees "to keep the public informed of 
our work." A symposium of club experience with news- 
papers would be extremely entertaining and contain many 
"danger signs" from the bitter experiences of press com- 
mittees. 



V 

COMMUNITY PROBLEMS SEEN THROUGH SCHOOLS 

Truancy and Tramps 

ABOUT each type of abnormal child clusters a group of 
L outside agencies ready to suggest and care. But no one 
class of children arouses so much interest, perhaps, or has so 
much money spent on it as wayward boys. Correctional and 
penal institutions are usually reserved now for chronic cases. 
Through probation officers and the cooperation required of 
teachers in signing parole slips, schools are close to juvenile 
courts and probation commissions. To regulate school 
truancy, the police department works side by side with 
the attendance officer. Any citizen is helping schools to 
fight truancy and thus prevent juvenile delinquency who has 
interest enough to ask the child he finds loafing or running 
errands at ten o'clock in the morning where he lives and to 
what school he goes, and then to drop a post card to that 
school. 

Truants and naughty children are not isolated figures, 
but intimately mixed up with lots of other people; and before 
it is too late the school should, by trying every known pre- 
ventive measure, forestall the accusation which has been 
made already in some cities, and will be made in all, that 
'4t was the school's fault." In large cities superintendents 
have many outside agencies to help them. Across the coun- 
try a chain of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to 

75 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

Children is looking up cases of truancy and crime re- 
ported by the schools, taking them into court, cooperating 
with relief societies and officials. They have a chance to 
see how the compulsory education law is really being en- 
forced. For example, a complaint was sent in to one of 
these Societies that a little girl was being ill-treated by the 
family with which she lived. The Society's visitor found 
this child of twelve, a thin, crushed, sickly little drudge, 
who had been adopted when a baby ''to become one of the 
family," and had suffered under work too hard for a grown 
woman. She had never been to school a day, nor had she 
any lessons at home, and the man who had brought this 
about was the principal of one of the public schools. 

But no outside agency in this day and generation should 
focus attention solely on the comparatively few cases serious 
enough to get into court. Because truancy and wajn^^ard- 
ness have so many roots, organizations are fighting diligently 
against cigarettes, liquor interests, employment as news- 
boys and gum-sellers, and bad conditions in moving picture 
shows. Few outside agencies, however, have dared pub- 
licly to attribute to schools the blame for many cases of 
juvenile delinquenc}', for the failure to secure physical fit- 
ness of pupils, to \dsit homes, and to provide recreation and 
education that really appeal. With the development in 
schools of clubs, classes, athletics, dancing, moving pictures, 
phj'sical care, and home visiting, the school itself is taking 
up the preventive work which alone can make juvenile 
courts unnecessary. Even almost chronic waywardness is 
being cured before it is too late. Take, for example, the 
"bad boy" school in New York to which incorrigibles are 
sent from other schools. Under the care of a woman prin- 
cipal, with routine school work as their penance, 50% of 
these boys turn out well. Every child sent there is on the 
edge of, might so easilv land permanently in the reformatory. 

76 



COMMUNITY PROBLEMS 

Those that do not turn out well from this school are probably 
hopeless. 

Every society and individual working with wayward 
boys and girls has a right to find out why. Did the school 
fail? Did the home fail? If school and home had been 
different, would it have happened? What must school and 
relief or recreational agencies do to keep a case like this 
from ever happening again? The messages and suggestions 
that a probation association or children's society can give 
to schools and homes are perhaps their most important 
contributions. Does an agency which, for fear of hurting 
itself, fails to tell about schools what it knows to be true 
deserve the interest and support of intelligent people? Su- 
perintendents and school boards have not perhaps realized 
that their failures are the real tests of their work; that what 
the children's society can tell them is of great value. 

In smaller cities and rural localities the whole community 
must be made to share the responsibility for checking way- 
wardness. A recent article by the secretary of the National 
Society for the Prevention of Mendicancy reviewed ways 
of keeping boys in small towns from taking up tramp life 
on the road. No mention whatever was made of the school 
as a potential preventive for mendicancy; yet each cause 
for the increasing number of boy tramps has a logical an- 
tidote in the village school. The longing for adventure, 
which is mentioned as one of the prime causes of tramp- 
hood, can be offset through the public schools by ade- 
quate libraries with books on travel and history, by teach- 
ers prepared to give talks on travel, by moving pictures, 
loan exhibits, and better newspapers. The dullness of some 
towns might be combated by using the schools as social 
centers, substituting a school reading or game room for the 
town pump as a meeting place for both men and boys; by 
starting club work in civics, history, art, literature, dra- 

77 



11 r. L r I N L\ sc woo l (^ ii i l d n ion 

mntics. aiul imlustrial traiiiini:;; by putting inti> tlio scIkh)! 
ourrii'uluiu move micivsi'xui^ ami I'lvativo work which may 
bo I'ontiuiuHi after school hours and keep boys busy on 
(irawini^-, wood carving-, ilesigning, and iron work. At the 
same time a scries of pictures anil talks in schools can show 
the dangers and unpleasantness of tranij) life. Sotnething 
like the boy scout movement, reaching boys through normal 
adventure, might be extendeil to smaller conununities. 
Better preparation and higher standanls for teachers are 
most fundamentally necessary. 

\'oluntary organizations, women's clubs, or civic leagues 
can be used at once to further this social, preventive work. 
Irregular attendants in schools are potential tramps, and 
teacher or attt>ndance otlicer should be enlisted to see why 
these boys do not come regularly. ^^'luM•e truancy is the 
result of {physical defects, treatment by physicians is needed. 
()ur schools are su{>posed to have every boy just at the 
ilangerous age. If our schools are inadetiuate ami children 
do not attenil, the entire conununity shi>uld hel{) them lead 
the tight against truancy. 

How in;uiy truants woro ropiMiod last year by poIit'cuiiMt? l\v iH'i\ato 

I'iti/.rns? 
In montioninji truain-y in liis annual roport, iloos tho suporintomliMit 

toll tlio supposod i-ausos? 
Wlmt is tiio use of ivfonuing-, at groat oxih"i\so. ohronii-ally bad boys, if 

si'hools jviui homos are going right on nianut'ai'turing moro bad 

boys in spite of known prevent ivo measures? 
Are ohildren. oondonmed by the teaohor as uninanagoablo, put on 

probation? Sontonood without [M'obntion? l)ro[){vd from sohool 

without provision in a detention homo or parental soiiool? 
How nuu'h money does tho oity, state, or ommty spend on its eor- 

reetional institutions? 
How nuu'h would it eost to put preventive, soeiali/.ing activities into the 

sohools? To start " bati boy " solu)ols? To have aikniuato probation? 
Is it praotieable to give partioular attention to "bad boys" by special 

classes in the regular schools? 

7S 



COMMUNITY PROBLEMS 



Anti Child Lahor or Pro ComjmUf/ry EducM'lon? 

W>ir3n our schools shall reach out and give practical help 
to every child, the pro?jlerri of child labor will be largely 
solved." The National Child Labor Coirunittee and its 
local branches throughout the country are connected with 
schools because they endeavor to secure laws for the pro- 
tection of working children; to agitate for technical educa- 
tion, vocational guidance, and special classes; to standard- 
ize state and city school reports; and to interest the public 
in birth and registration laws. 

In Connecticut the Child Labor Committee and the Con- 
sumers' League made it possible to have a vocational coun- 
selor in the sctiools and planned his work from a previous 
study of vocational guidance in other countries. The New 
York Committee has made studies of school attendance and 
truancy. Its two expert investigators help the department of 
health see that working certificates to children leaving school 
at fourteen are based on actual evidence of birth, school 
attendance, and health. This has convinced school author- 
ities that the issuing of certificates is not an unnecessary 
form. Scholarships are secured for some of the children who 
otherwise would be forced to leave school. Truants and 
illegal workers are reported to the school officers by the 
Committee's visitors, and are watched for a month to see 
whether their school attendance is regular. In most states, 
however, anti child labor interest has to do exclusively with 
legislation. But the child labor expert is more than a state 
capitol lobbyist. He knows how laws should be enforced, 
and locally he can give constructive suggestions about 
meeting problems of truancy and non-attendance. A sec- 
retary of one state committee writes, ''In some places, 

though representing only a private association, I was able 

79 



HELPINC SCHOOL CHILDREN 

to have almost the authority of a state inspector simply 
through my kno\vledf2;e of the subject." 

Anti chilli labor work has readily won the cooperation 
of org;anized women, hi Rhode Island, for example, where 
the child labor committee grew from the State Federation 
of Women's Clubs and the Public Education Association, 
statements about the labor laws for women and children and 
how they should be amended were sent to all the mothers, 
clubs in the state. Women in rural conununities were urged 
to use these arguments in personal appeals to their local 
representatives in the legislature, while talks in cities to 
meetings of business men, women, and ministers created 
widespread interest. After three years of this campaigning 
the desired amendments were passed. Through the Con- 
sumers' League in Mt. Vernon cooperation in giving 
working papers was secured between the schools and the 
health department. The League's child labor conmiittee 
investigates children whose parents cannot furnish sufficient 
evidence, supplies temporary scholarships, and" refers needy 
cases to relief agencies. It keeps school officials and teachers 
stocked with publications about industrial conditions and 
legal facts that assist them in their work, and interests 
merchants in the enforcement of laws regai'ding mercantile 
establishments. 

The first move against child labor or for compulsory 
education is to find out how many children should be com- 
pulsorily educated. In St. Cloud the Woman's Club made 
a house-to-house canvass of the whole city, with uniform 
blanks. Not a child escaped the \vatchful eyes of these 
mothers, and their work made the city intelligently aware 
of its assets in children. This school census brought big 
returns to the givers. It meant a permanently honest esti- 
mate of school facts. Any individual or any agency can make 

preliminary studies to find out how the compulsory education 

so 



COMMUNITY PROBLEMS 

law is being enforced or to show the need for such a law. 
''Last week a member of the school board attempted to 
satisfy himself as to the statement that the compulsory 
education law is not being enforced. For half an hour 
during school hours he questioned each boy and girl of 
school age whom he met on the streets. A dozen or more 
were found, and in not one case was there a legal reason 
for absence. Several confessed they had not been in school 
for months. A similar test can be made by any resident." 
In this Pennsylvania city arrests had not been made for 
several years and the penalizing privilege of the attendance 
officer seemed to mean nothing. 

Your city might be compared with others as to the number 
of arrests made per population. Pin maps, locating the at- 
tendance officer's activities, show graphically what is hap- 
pening to the compulsory education law, and which dis- 
tricts need more attention. Model forms for recording 
truants and visits by officers are available from every child 
labor committee, with descriptions of systems under one, 
two, or ten attendance officers, and information about the 
most up-to-date arrangements for special "bad boy" 
classes or for parental schools. 

A state department of education may draw upon the ex- 
perience not only of its state, but of all other states, through 
the National Child Labor Committee. Suggestive details 
about method are available — about using newspapers, 
writing letters to prominent citizens, getting state author- 
ities to withhold school revenue until attendance officers 
are appointed, instituting prosecutions, and cooperating 
personally with superintendents. One secretary writes of 
districting his state in a campaign for a school law and 
making visits of enlightenment to 50 city superintendents. 

The problem of the working child is closely, inextricably 
mixed with school administrative problems, health ques- 

81 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

tions, vocational training and guidance, industrial demands, 
the needs of defective and indigent children. The child 
labor committee in your city might easily be the center of 
school cooperation, the "children's bureau" to correlate all 
other agencies. The latest information regarding state work 
for child labor and compulsory education may be obtained 
from the National Child Labor Committee, 105 East Twenty- 
second Street, New York. 

Making Citizens in Our Public Schools 

Courses in civics have been included in the school cur- 
riculum for years, and outside agencies have organized to 
supplement what seems to them perfunctory teaching by 
more personal training in the meaning of citizenship. One 
of the laboratory methods by which children in several 
cities learn to be good citizens is the school city or re- 
public, a type of pupil self-government which imitates the 
municipal activities most familiar to children. There are 
in some schools a legislative body, a judicial body, and a 
mayor, with his council and board of aldermen. When a 
boy is mayor he just about runs the school, and his com- 
missioners see to it that his administration is a notable 
one. After a long fight in one school, the suffragists elected 
a girl as mayor. The earnestness and sincerity of the chil- 
dren under this regime cannot be questioned. Some prin- 
cipals say that it makes discipline easier. Others think it 
does no good, and still others that it takes too much time 
on the part of teachers or encourages embryo grafters. 
The truth is that the success of the school city form of 
self-government depends almost entirely on the intelligent 
interest of teacher or principal, which in turn may be de- 
pendent on outside interest. For information, address 
School Citizen's Committee, 2 Wall Street, New York. 

82 



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MY TOWN : NEW YORK: BY A CITY HISTORY CLUB 
THREE ROUTES TO EFFICIENT CITIZENSHIP 



COMMUNITY PROBLEMS 

Another helper in civic training is the City History Club, 
which forms groups in settlements, chiu*ches, and occa- 
sionally in public schools. In New York these children are 
taken by trained teachers to see the sights of the city. 
They visit sessions of the board of aldermen, investigate in 
person the work of the park or street cleaning commis- 
sioner, and are made to feel responsibility and pride in the 
city property. Before extending this personal civic training 
through the public schools teachers must be made intelli- 
gent about the workings of city government. This is done 
by special training classes and lectures. Still another 
agency in New York, the People's Institute, maintains a 
clipping bureau with files of printed matter on all topics, 
civic, legislative, and municipal, for distribution among 
schools. The National Municipal League discusses instruc- 
tion for citizenship at its meetings, and maintains a per- 
manent committee to promote the teaching of civics in 
public schools. 

There are many other agencies, groups of women and men 
throughout the country, endeavoring to make more effective 
the civic training in our public schools. But no one method 
of doing it has been found much better than any other 
method. Each experiment is considered adequate by its 
supporters, and yet the years go by and our children are 
turned out no better acquainted with the cities they live in 
and their duties as citizens than they were fifteen years ago. 
There is no doubt that children are interested in "civics," 
if presented in the right way. A perfectly apathetic class 
will wake up and take notice when the teacher begins to 
ask, "What can you do to help the street cleaning de- 
partment?" 

Denver publishes a little weekly paper telling just what 
is going on in all departments; and to keep school children 
informed and interested in the innumerable processes of 
7 83 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

city government, Mumdpol Facts is used by public* school 
classes as a textbook. Business men and organizations 
might see that tielil work in eivio training is inehuiod in the 
sylhvbus and that nuMiey for supervisors and extra teachers 
is inchided in the school budget. There are many oppor- 
tunities for individual members of good government clubs, 
voters' leagues, and short ballot associations to give talks 
in schools. With the development of the social center and 
the formation of civic clubs in the public schools several 
ways of making citizenship interesting are being discovered, 
which give men and women in public atl'airs a chance to 
interpret their experiences to school children. 

The Boy Scouts vs. Jurcnile Delinquency 

"A scout is a friend to all and a brother to everj^ other 
scout." 

Scoutcraft organization, with the forms and regalia of 
military service, appeals by its romance and spirit of ad- 
venture, its drills and "liikes" to the country. Almost any 
day a patrol of sturdy boj's with the flag at their head can 
be seen marching through our streets. One of the basic 
arguments for the existence of the boy scout movement is 
that it trains boys to feel their relation to society and the 
state, not by fostering militarism, but by developing man- 
liness, self-reliance, and generosity. Several scout masters 
say, however, that the organization is hampered by not 
having recognized connection with any permanent institu- 
tion. Scout literature still fails to mention public schools 
as one of the recruiting grounds, which include churches, 
Y. M. C. A.s, and settlements. In a few cities close co- 
operation exists between scouts and schools, in which nine- 
tenths of the Denver patrols, for example, are formed. 
They meet at the school buildings and use large auditoriums 
for their genenil conferences. 

84 



COMMUNITY PROBLEMS 

In Washington, D. C, troops meet in one of the schools 
once a week just after hours. ''The school authorities," 
writes the secretary, ''are interested in the experiment, and 
if it succeeds, troops in schools will be quite general through- 
out the city." Meanwhile the use of buildings for this pur- 
pose is questioned legally, and until the corporation counsel 
makes a favorable decision the Boy Scouts must stay outside 
the schools. 

If the preliminary organizing of the movement were now 
as closely connected with the schools as are, for example, 
public school athletic leagues of twenty cities, there would 
proh>ably be less difficulty in securing permission to use 
school property. The alleged reason for the absence of 
special school connection among scout patrols is the diffi- 
culty in getting enough male teachers to be able and willing 
leaders. Athletic leagues have found no such difficulty. 
Teachers and principals have responded with time and in- 
terest, and sometimes with money. 

A scout secretary recently wrote me asking how scouts in 
other cities cooperated with educational authorities. When 
I wrote for this information the national headquarters re- 
ferred me to the same secretary who had asked the ques- 
tion. What more important object has a national associa- 
tion than constantly collecting information from all branches 
and making available definite suggestions about methods, 
such as this secretary wanted? If Denver and Washington 
and some of the smaller cadet organizations in rural coun- 
ties are finding cooperation with schools successful, every 
scout master in the country should know about it. The 
national headquarters should be an up-to-date clearing house. 

It is interesting to know that the labor unions oppose the 
scout movement because it fosters militarism and obedience 
to law. From Reading we hear that a troop of scouts in 
the high school "has met much opposition from the so- 

85 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

With all this, the grade teachers, as well as the physical 
training instructors, have been heartily in sympathy, giving 
their afternoons freely. Yet the League could not have 
reached its present success except for the constant co- 
operation of outside men and women who have given money 
for its support, have sought publicity for it, and endeavored 
to make the community realize that athletics ought to be 
a recognized part of the school system, and ought to reach 
every boy and girl. 

Here is a continuous opportunity for individual members 
of athletic clubs to help in umpiring games or serving as 
referees and timekeepers. One man in another city, who 
has reached the dignified position of a legislator for his 
state, acts as chief coach for football and baseball in the 
public schools. In training the girls, also, volunteers give 
their afternoons to act as coaches and referees. Field 
hockey especially, which is suited to high school and upper 
grammar school girls, needs volunteer cooperation in its 
development. 

Since its foundation, this New York League has been 
imitated all over the countr}", some twenty cities now hav- 
ing organized athletics in public schools. They have been 
started by school superintendents, by groups of business 
men, or by the alumni. It is comparatively simple in any 
city to have a flourishing athletic league under way within 
a short time. For information concerning by-laws, rules, and 
championship contests, write for the year book of the Public 
Schools Athletic League, 500 Park Avenue, New York. 
Spalding sells for ten cents an official handbook of the 
League, giving all the rules for each event, records, and 
championships, and also a handbook on girls' athletics. 

But in order to have any kind of athletics, it is necessary 
to have the proper fields and equipment. This requires 
private money until budget changes can be secured which 

88 



COMMUNITY PROBLEMS 

recognize athletics as simply a part of the sensible physical 
training of school children. In Reading the alumni of the 
high school have made possible the purchase of a large ath- 
letic field, and the Olivet Boys' Club sends its athletic di- 
rector among the schools to talk to boys and teachers about 
physical training and athletics. 

What it means to children in a large city, some of whom 
have seen no place big enough to play in except the streets, 
hard-paved playgrounds, or dirty vacant lots, to have all 
the fun and inspiring experience of organized athletics, of 
team play, of inter-school competition, of doing things to- 
gether, is proved by the happiness and health in their faces 
and bodies. Similar benefits are bound to become a part 
of every public school system sooner or later. 

The Opportunity for Service by Religious Societies of 
Young People 

Through its national, international, intercollegiate and 
local groups the Y. M. C. A. is in touch with schools in 
several ways. It aims to cooperate '4n all good efforts," 
and has direct access to the schools through teacher mem- 
bers. In one of the New York branches, for example, 25 
teachers meet weekly in the Association rooms to discuss 
school matters. Members for Y. M. C. A. summer classes 
are secured by circularizing the public schools. It has po- 
tentially as close a connection with individual schools as 
has any public education association and an equal chance to 
study actual school needs and initiate school improvements. 

Y. M. C. A. workers in some cities have undoubtedly 
given much time to school questions, especially to physical 
training and vacation schools. Local branches make special 
rates to school boys for gymnasium classes and swimming 
lessons, and train them as leaders in school athletics. In a 

89 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

western city all the selux^ls had the use of the pool free one 
sunnuer, and the Association otTered a prize to the sehool 
which sliowed the hu'gest number of boys able to swim. Of 
this and poultry clubs formed in the school, the superin- 
tendent writes, "It is to be rej;retteil that these activities 
were not made permanent features of the Y. M. C. A." 
Some branches in New York give free lessons in swimming 
to public school boys in sununer time. One branch intends 
to see that every boy in the district's schools knows how to 
swim. Several branches employ high school secretaries to 
secure speakers for assemblies, arrange for series of talks 
by business men on vocations, and act as vocational coun- 
selors to the boys. This much-needed work should be ex- 
tended until vocational advising and the cooperation of 
manufacturers and business men with schools is made a 
delinite part of a. city's business. 

School cooperation on a large scale means publicity and 
action at budget time. AA'hy should not a Y. M. C. A. 
support the board of education's rec|uest for more vaca- 
tion schools, more gj'nniastic equipment, more and better 
teachers for special classes? This kind of cooperation is not 
yet a definite part of a Y. ]\I. C. A. program. School work 
may be very important in one district and completely 
ignored in the next. In large cities the central organiza- 
tion does not try to keep all branches in touch with the best 
work done in any one, though eventually the news spreads. 
It was declared impossible at a central oflice in one of oiu' 
Lu'gest cities to tell where the best things were being done 
by Y. M. C. A.s for schools throughout the country. It 
was necessary to send out a (luestionnaire in order to secure 
this information. Is not an opportunity lost by not having 
a central fact-collecting bureau for the Y. M. C. A.'s work 
with schools or a clearing house for suggestions from the ex- 
perience of lociil associations? 

90 



COMMUNITY PROBLEMS 

Too often the Y. M. C. A., instead of helping and forcing 
the school system to be efficient, seems to argue that the 
school system is inefficient; therefore, private supplementary- 
work should be started on a small scale. Why should the 
Y. M. C. A. have to maintain a day school for retarded 
pupils when the board of education is supporting un- 
graded and vacation classes? Why should public school 
and Y. M, C. A, be working separately for the same end, 
when the Y. M. C. A. might use its work as an argument 
for similar attention to all boys under the school system? 
Anything that a Y. M. C. A. considers worth doing for its 
members and associate members is worth getting done for 
all boys. Has a Y. M. C. A. ever said frankly: ''We are doing 
about one-half of one per cent of the work needed along these 
lines. We cannot ever do what needs to be done. We 
must work until the schools themselves are made able by 
public support and budget increases to do this for 100% of 
those needing it"? 

Using the Association as a laboratory, anything learned 
about summer instruction or special classes for backward 
boys should be spread broadcast throughout the country. 
For example, the Young Men's Hebrew Association in 
New York is using motion pictures to supplement class 
work in elementary subjects. The course given by this 
Association is correlated with the regular school syllabus; 
any advantages discovered will be made public property, and 
an effort will be made to get the same thing into the schools. 

Granting that the Y. M. C. A. is doing splendid work, 
it has an opportunity for more extended usefulness by 
calling attention to, instead of ignoring, the struggling 
school system in each community. The time and money 
spent in advertising school needs not only advertises what 
the Association is trying to do, but proves that it is in the 
highest sense working for the betterment of all mankind. 

91 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

As a special group, young Christians or Hebrews have 
more than a light trusteeship. The fact that they are able 
to join these associations means that they are receiving 
opportunities which others are not receiving. Everything 
true about a Y. M. C. A. and Y. M. H. A. is true for the 
corresponding organizations of women. Special classes for 
handicraft and modes of recreation are carried on with 
inattention to the bulk of girls who are not getting these 
privileges because they cannot belong to the Y. W. C. A. 
In schools only is U)0''(^ ot" the problems facing these asso- 
ciations of men and women seen. When opportunities 
through schools have been recognized and seized, communities 
will be even more ready to fin*nisli funds for the support of 
these outside agencies. 

Schools and Peace 

Our national bureau of education has asked all American 
schools to observe Peace Day, May 18th. The 20,000,000 
children who have their attention called over and over 
again to arguments for universal peace during twelve school 
years will help make future public opinion strong for inter- 
national justice and fraternity. This is the purpose of the 
American School Peace League, 405 Marlborough Street, 
Boston, though at present the work concentrates on the 
teachers through normal schools and conventions. Because 
children should be steeped in the spirit of good will, the 
Massachusetts branch of the League has worked out a grad- 
uated course of talks beginning with the first grade. Little 
children are led to be kind to pets and playmates, older ones 
to appreciate the ties of city or town by a "course in moral 
training based on lessons in civics, literature, geography, 
and history." to be correlated with the regular school work. 

State branches of the League distribute literature among 
school and college libraries. History courses are being re- 

02 



COMMUNITY PROBLEMS 

modeled to emphasize peace instead of war, on the theory 
that children old enough to study history are old enough to 
understand the Hague Conference. Prizes for peace essays 
are offered yearly by the League and by several chambers 
of commerce to pupils in secondary and normal schools. 

A charming pageant was given at a public school com- 
mencement when lovely Peace and dread War, with all 
their minions and followers in allegorical costumes, strug- 
gled for power over the mind of a little school child. You 
will be glad to hear that, though sorely tempted by the 
glamour of battles and adventures, the child finally sided 
with Peace. During the year the eighth-grade classes in 
this school — under the principalship of Katharine D. Blake, 
treasurer of the National Education Association — had 
written to the secretaries of war in every country in 
Europe and Asia, asking how much the nation spends on 
war and how much on education. The answers came even 
from China and Brazil; foreign potentates showed themselves 
much interested in this phase of the peace movement at least. 

Whatever the arguments for and against international 
peace, the value of training children in the spirit of good 
will cannot be questioned, or the advisability of having 
teachers enrolled in the campaign for fraternal feeling. 
Shall women's clubs and parents' associations carry the 
peace movement farther and into the children's homes? 

The United States bureau of education has published 
as Bulletin 476, Peace Day, with suggested programs for 
school observances, essays, songs, and bibliography. 

The Public Library and the Schools 

It is really astonishing how long it has taken libraries 
and schools to realize that they have something to give each 
other. Even now school cooperation is just beginning in 

93 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

some libraries, and has not been considered by many others. 
Some hbrarics have children's rooms or special stacks where 
children may browse. Others keep story hours or send 
books to scliools. Stimulating cooperation is given by the 
Newark Public Library under the direction of John Cotton 
Dana. In a pamphlet, The Library's Work with the 
Public Schools, the connections are described — cases of 
books for each classroom, reference work with children, 
exhibits, clipping files, and collections of textbooks for 
teachers. Inspectors are sent to keep school libraries in 
order and mend mutilated volumes; for in Newark all 
books in schools are provided by the Library, and any 
classroom may have as many as it pleases if the teacher 
will take the trouble to write or ask for them. When children 
have essays to write they find ready help at the library in 
selecting reference books. The ones most frequently called 
for by essay writers are kept on handy shelves. Yet years 
have been consumed in getting about half the teachers 
interested in these opportunities and in showing them 
concretely just how their work may be enriched and sim- 
plified by cooperation with the library. 

To get directly in touch with teachers, some branches of 
the New York Public Library have ''school assistants" 
who visit each school, and tell the principal and teachers 
just how the library w^ants to help. Teachers bring classes 
during the last morning or afternoon period to the children's 
room, where a brief talk is given about inventions, or flying 
machines, or history; and the most interesting books for 
boys or girls, as the case may be, are spread out for them 
to handle. Teachers themselves have special privileges in 
taking out reference books. Notices about books of in- 
terest to teachers are posted on school bulletin boards. 
Similar work, but perhaps more personal, is being done by 

the small library at Wliite Haven, Pennsylvania. 

y4 



COMMUNITY PROBLEMS 

Library work even in Newark and New York is only 
with some of the schools, with a comparatively small per- 
centage of teachers. From the point of view of both li- 
brary and school, it is ''an extra" as yet. Only by patient 
offering of wares will the teachers be convinced. Much 
more could be done in some cities if the heads of school 
systems would emphasize the library's message, would 
make a point of showing appreciation for what is offered 
and suggest new ways, changes in method, perhaps, 
which would make cooperation more valuable from the 
school point of view. How much initiative should rest 
with the library, how much with the superintendent of 
schools, does not matter. The library's value to schools and 
the school's importance to the library has been thoroughly 
proved. It does not need to be tried out any longer. It 
will soon be considered evervwhere a test of school and 
library efficiency. 

One obstacle to the combining of library and school is 
the attempt of schools — ^very successful in some cases — to 
do library work, to distribute their own books. When as- 
suming work that a library is prepared to do, duplication is 
unfortunate because it makes it harder for the library to 
develop its logical place among educational institutions in 
the city. It is especially to be deplored when a large, forced 
circulation among school children is used as an argument 
for spending more money on school libraries. In one city 
every child is required to register and take home a book 
Friday night. It frequently happens that a boy of ten 
will have only books on sociology or mechanics to select 
from. The figures of books registered — not read, mind you — 
are used to prove the success of the school libraries and the 
need for larger appropriations. The same situation prevails 
in other cities. Women's clubs give a school library without 
finding out whether they are crippling the public library. 

95 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

Everybody agrees that money should be spent by the 
eity on books for children. AVhen s]>ent thronjih the library 
an entire expert force is available; business can be done 
wholesale, and, therefore, more cheaply. When spent 
tln-ough the school, supervisors are required, and repairs, 
which detract just so nuich from the appropriation for 
books. Logically, as the Library Journal has said, it is 
probably true that in the great city, as in the small one. 
the best results would be reacheil by having the school 
libraries branches of the public library. In the issue of 
that magazine for April. 19L2. you will find several excellent 
papers on school work from the librarian's point of view. 

lUusiraiors of Xatural History 

Just how a museum, that vast collection of things in 
cases, can be of practical use to school teachers and children 
is shown by the American Museum of Natural History in 
New York. Loan collections of stuffed birds and animals, 
charts, cases of insects and minerals, were distributed among 
385 schools in 1011 to illustrate work in nature study. 
The nuiseum bears the entire expense of delivering and call- 
ing for exhibits. This work was later supplemented by 
lectures at the museum and the establishment of a room 
where children can come to use specimens, draw, and make 
models in clay. Special opportunities are offered to lure 
teachers with their classes, for, as with the art nuiseum, 
they do not at once see where this institution can be of 
actual service to them in their routine work. Notices posted 
in schools and individual letters to principals tell just how 
the nuiseum would like to help. A demonstrator will take 
teachers through in groups. Free admission is, of course, a 
stimulator, and then there is a lantern with stereopticon 
slides which may be borrc wed. 



COMMUNITY PROBLEMS 

Other museums are handicapped in their work with schools 
by not having money enough for delivering to the schools 
the loan exhibits needed. They are thus able to benefit 
only those teachers who are already interested enough to 
call at the museum for things. This necessitates slow de- 
velopment of cooperation. To establish definite school re- 
lations with the Field Museum in Chicago, Mr. N. W. 
Harris has given a foundation of $250,000, thus enabling 
the museum to send its collections broadcast and encourage 
children to visit the institution itself. But even in the most 
progressive museums the school work is as yet rather a 
fad, not a legitimate part of the scientific guarding of 
treasures. 

Zoological gardens and aquariums have the same educa- 
tive resources. "School" ought to mean occasional visits 
to the zoo, where things you learn about in geography and 
nature study are pointed out. The joy every child feels 
in seeing beautiful, alive things reflects in school work. 
Why should not each room have its pet animals to teach 
children the care and understanding of pets? 

Some people hold that our museums should be broken up 
and divided among schools so that each will have its own 
reference museum for nature study. The Natural History 
Museum is bringing about the desired result by starting 
permanent exhibits in some schools. A few objects, per- 
haps duplicates from the museum cases, are the nucleus about 
which the children themselves make their own collection. 
Each gift or "find" may be labeled with the child's name, 
thus stimulating individual pride, school pride, and science 
pride. When schools have their own collections it is pos- 
sible to specialize, to give the high school what is needed for 
more advanced work in natural sciences, the lower grades 
the simpler things. In cities where there is no museum the 

citizen who wants to give has a great opportunity. An 

97 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

initial $100 or $200 will establish equipment for the finest 
sort of museum. One gift in a city makes for others. 
Scientists and science teachers will cooperate. People will 
find things tucked away in their attics which will prove 
valuable. A spare store room may be utilized until enough 
material is collected by all the schools to start the city 
museum. 

Other City Departments and the Schools 

Has your city a special division or office in its health de- 
partment for children's work? With the development of 
health work in schools the health department inevitably is 
brought in touch. When there is no definite appropriation 
for inspectors under the board of education, the department's 
physicians usually make inspection for transmissible diseases. 
It is a much mooted question in many cities whether the 
medical work for school children ought logically to be a part 
of the educational system or a part of the health board's 
duties. Outsiders, fortunately, can work for the health of 
school children through either department. 

The formation of ''little mothers' " leagues in New York 
has shown how nurses and physicians can approach the 
problem of infant mortality by training girls from six to 
sixteen in the care of their younger sisters and brothers. 
Prizes are offered at the health department's clinics for the 
best-kept baby. The lectures held on recreation piers and 
in playgrounds throughout the summer months especially 
are thronged with these little mothers. Clubs of big 
mothers, too, have been talked to in school about health by 
the department's physicians. A woman's club can arrange 
for such conferences. 

Hospital cooperation in treating children for physical de- 
fects has been stimulated by health departments. In New 
York cards were distributed for use by all hospitals. 

98 



COMMUNITY PROBLEMS 

HOSPITAL-DISPENSARY 

To the Department of Health: 

Uving at 



has received (surgical) (medical) treatment at this (hospital) (dispensary) 
for — — - — - — — 

on the following dates: 

Date M. D. 

Date M. D. 

Date M. D. 

This card is to be kept by the child receiving treatment and presented 
to the doctor at the dispensary or doctor or nurse at the school whenever 
called for. 

More complete illustrations of cooperation for the health of 
school children follow in Chapter IX. 

It should not be necessary to request the police board to 
report any children under school age seen on the streets 
during school hours. The police, a census board, or group of 
men and women can locate each child in the city to discover 
whether he is in school, or vv^hat he does if legally at work. 

Park departments and those who have charge of piers and 
docks have given valuable cooperation by making space 
available for athletic contests and playgrounds. School gar- 
dens for children in parks, the use of greenhouses for nature 
study, supplies of seeds — through these can park depart- 
ments help. 

To assist the overworked street cleaners juvenile leagues 
were organized among school children in New York by 
Colonel Waring. As one league announced, ''their purpose 
is to keep the school and the district wherein the school lies 
clean." 

Is there any department in your city which is not in some 

way connected with schools? Most mayors and council- 
« 99 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

men. obeying the tradition that there is somethinc; sacred 
and "dil^Vrent " about schools, have kept their hands otT and 
left systems to educators. The mayor of IMontpeher, how- 
ever, hohis that as "the schools are the big-gest spenders of 
money, they shoukl be the greatest concern of the city's 
chief executive." He does not see why, though he has never 
been a schoolmaster, the educational department should be 
more immune from close cooperation of the mayoralty 
than are streets, bridges, and other public works. Is he 
right? 

How Children's Institutions Help Educate 

How many children of school tigo in your state are not attending 
pubhc. private, or parochial scliool, because they are in institutions, 
or hiilden away at home? 

Is the instruction in institutions as good as that, given to more for- 
tunate children? 

Is it adapted to special mental or physical defects? 

Do private or semi-pubUc institutions in your citj'' examine all children 
in their care for physical defects? 

There are hospitals where children, chronically ill or crip- 
pled, must live their neglected little lives. There are re- 
formatcn-ies, few of which, apjiarently. reform. There are 
asylums, prisons, and segregated villages for epileptics. 
It is fortunate that the bedside-visiting, flower-giving kind- 
ness with which good people have brightened lives in in- 
stitutions is being supplemented by attention to the funda- 
mental possibilities of each child. Singing to children in a 
hospital on Sunday eveiltng is in itself a beautiful thing to 
do. Is it beautiful enough if those children are sut^'ering 
every day and every year from inefficient teaching or from 
lack of individual attention mentally? 

In one city hospital a little blind girl went mad because, 
with work for other chronic cripples, the teacher supplied 



COMMUNITY PROBLEMS 

by the board of education had neither time nor skill to 
teach this single, doubly-handicapped child. Education 
within institutions should be adapted not only to the major 
classifications — i.e., deaf, blind — but to tv/o classifications. 
Where should a child be educated who is both deaf and in- 
corrigible, who is crippled and mentally deficient? 

Problems like these must be solved by visiting committees 
of State Charities Aid Associations, or other bodies whose 
purpose is to watch what is happening in all institutions. It 
is comparatively easy to tell that education is inefficient, 
that handicapped children are not having the chance they 
should, or that more vocational work should be given. 
But to secure better-trained teachers, scientific methods, 
psychological examination, and vocational equipment is 
quite another matter. A visiting committee armed with 
definite information which is supplemented by personal ob- 
servation is a powerful ally for children in institutions, and 
should certainly be free from subservience to any party or 
politics. With our present knowledge of what can be done 
with and for defective children of all kinds, there is really 
no excuse for having in our institutions systems of education 
that were considered adequate twenty years ago. 

After years of contact with the defective children in in- 
stitutions, the State Charities Aid in New York has con- 
cluded that all children, normal or abnormal, should be 
under the jurisdiction of school authorities, with provision 
for the special education of those who cannot attend the 
ordinary public schools. 

We should like to see every child's case studied by the department of 
education and educational opportunities provided to meet the needs of 
all children, whether normal, feeble-minded, blind, deaf, crippled, or 
otherwise abnormal. If this requires legislation, we think that legislation 
should be secured to accomplish this purpose. I understand that at the 
present time the truant officers pay no attention to cases of abnormal 

101 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

children. Of course, if such children were provided for, there would 
have to be very careful pliysical ami mental examinations and special 
schools for those who could not go to the regular schools. 

Every institution where there are ehildren can, as a 
kiboratory, gi\'e nuieh help to the piibhc school sj'steni 
in its city or state. In homes for the bhnd things are being 
discovered constantly which should be introduced in public 
school classes for the blind. Hefonnatories are finding out 
the causes of degeneracy and what preventive measures 
are necessary to lessen juvenile delinquency. Through 
prisons full of juvenile criminals serving sentence the crhni- 
nologist has a chance to prove what modified education 
can do to keep these boys from coming back again. 

Tiie troubles of one bad boy or one blind child, when 
studied at close range by specialists, are easy to diagnose. 
Dr. E. R. Johnstone, of Yineland, has said that a child's 
mind or body is like an automobile. Y\'hen it is standing 
still you can inspect or overhaul it, take it to pieces, and 
put it together. When it is moving slowly you can at least 
see what make, size, and color it is. But when it is going 
as fast as it can you have a blurred impression, nothing 
more. Wliat specialists find out from the child who is 
standiiig still should be made available to all those who 
deal with normal or slightly deficient children, for the 
mechanism is the same. 

Public schools and institutions stand together to deal 
with the many children "on the edge." Some of these might 
be hopelessly hurt by being sent to an institution. Others 
might hurt public schools and their schoolmates. The 
school alone can find, watch, and diagnose all cases which 
need testing. Schools are doing for the crippled and the 
blind what was inconceivable ten years ago. They have 
recently assumed responsibility for finding high types of 
mental defectives. Perhaps some day, with modified school 

102 



COMMUNITY PROBLEMS 

courses, we shall not nc3ed any institutions except for those 
with diseases or deficiencies which make their presence at 
large a danger to the community. 

Until then, however, a woman's club or any group of 
citizens can tell by plain, common sense what sort of edu- 
cation institutional children are getting, and can then learn 
from experts what needs to be done for each class. This 
outside interest can be of immense service to public schools, 
to state and city departments of charities and corrections, 
courts and probation associations, public and private hos- 
pitals, and all volunteer agencies interested in one or more 
types of defective. 

Because defective children are the state's care. Catholic 
and Protestant institutions alike should benefit by this 
watchfulness. If the schools run by Catholic sisters— small 
schools often lacking the facilities and expensive equipment 
found in public schools — are able to turn out thoroughly 
trained children, are there not lessons to be learned from 
them by city systems? 

Working for Playgrounds 

Anybody can start a playground. Real estate owners give 
land; initial funds are secured by public subscriptions or 
yearly entertainments; business concerns or individuals 
equip and donate playgrounds; estates of rich men give land; 
parent-teacher associations give apparatus; mothers' clubs 
provide swings, trapeze, rings, horses; playground com- 
mittees get all citizens and organizations interested; play- 
ground associations start about a nucleus of women ; children 
themselves take petitions around to influential citizens; 
300 citizens petition for playgrounds; private citizens loan 
land; residents of a district purchase land. These are just 
samples of how playgrounds begin. 

103 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

The aim of all volunteer playgroiiiul work is, of course, 
to have the city ollieials take it over. This requires a buciji;et 
appropriation. Since cities are conservative about speniiinfi; 
money for recreation pm*e and simple, the necessary allow- 
ances for playground and recreation center sometimes come 
more easily under the board of education's expenditures. 
In Waterbury the school board, after planniuii; a playground 
in one of the most congested parts, found that no appro- 
priations from the city were forthcoming. The land was 
therefore turned over to the Associated Charities, which 
eciuipped and ran the playgroimd that sunnner. This is 
one of many interesting combinations made during the 
transition time between volunteer and public sup]K)rt. A 
playground connnittee in Richmond is made of delegates 
from the city council and the IMothers' Congress. In Den- 
\'er the executive body includes representatives of the school 
board, playground connnission, and JNlothers' Congress. 

The branching and flowering of playground work into 
dancing, games, and industrial training under supervision 
calls in new experts to make play for school chiklren more 
educational. Folk dancing under the Guild of Play in New 
York, for example, has given exercise and happiness to 
hundreils of children in the city's playgrounds. Wading 
and swimming pools add to the summer's attractiveness, and 
skating rinks to winter's. Newspapers offer trophies for 
baseball games and athletic contests. Ice cream is given 
by some firms for playground festivals, while other com- 
panies supi>ly sand for playboxes. 

Exhibits of work, carpentry and basket weaving, games 
and dancing, when given early in the existence of new volun- 
teer playgrounds, advertise what has already been done, and 
make it easier to get money for what the playground wants 
to do. Happy children doing things are the biggest appeal 
in the world for the extension of playground facilities. 

10-1 



COMMUNITY PROBLEMS 

Milwaukee was convinced by figures which showed that 
children in a school where there was a playground were 
late only one-half as often as children in a school without a 
playground — the same kind of children — because the boys and 
girls came early to use the swings and trapeze, and when the 
school bell rang there they were, xmavoidably corralled. 

It is now a question of getting enough play space, the 
right kind of supervision, playgrounds near schools, and play- 
grounds open all the year round. When part-time schooling 
has been combined with playground facilities we cease to 
feel that children are being robbed of their education. One- 
third play and two-thirds school has been proved to work 
especially well with younger children. But more education 
by ''doing" in playgrounds requires more space to do it in. 
It should be impossible in your city for a school building to 
be planned without adequate provision for play space, not 
only so that school and play will be associated in the child's 
mind, but so that open space will bring better light and air 
to the school rooms inside. In buying sites playground and 
garden opportunities should also be considered. 

It is generally conceded that playgrounds without super- 
vision are not as desirable as playgrounds with supervision. 
Fewer children are reached, and the results do not prove the 
value of play. The public-spirited citizen who donates land 
can double the effectiveness of his gift by making sure that 
funds for equipment and supervision will be provided by the 
city or private agencies. Training for playground teaching 
is included in the course of some normal and training schools. 
The University of Pittsburg in cooperation with the Pitts- 
burg Playground Association gives general and special 
courses in playground and allied work. Here and in other 
universities a volunteer can easily become skilled in this 
mode of cooperation. 

A thousand suggestions about starting, developing, and 

105 



HKMMNC SCHOOL Til I L ORE N 

porfcH'tinji" playiiToutuls iiiv i'ouiul in The rhu/groumi, the 
ofiii'ial org;au of the Playgrouiul and Recreation Association 
of America, 1 Madison Avenue, New York, which will furnish 
lecturers and or»;anizers, as well as information. Each 
month an attractive little bulletin comes with its ''Play- 
ground Facts," everythiuii' about management and organ- 
ization. The issue for January, 1012, sunuuarizes play- 
ground work throughout the country, with all its allied 
activities in recreation centers, organized athletics, and street, 
play. It tells how playgroimds are managed and supported 
and to whom to write about any particular one that happens 
to interest you. There are articles on "How to Start a Play- 
ground" and ''First Steps in Organizing Playgrounds." 

Kindergarten Associations 

In many cities the establishment of kindergartens is due 
alinost entirely to outside interest. In Denver, Dubuque, 
and ]Mt. \'ernon, for instance, they were started by the 
Woman's Club and later taken over by the boai'd of educa- 
tion. In Galesburg the parent-teacher association has sup- 
ported one to induce the board to start them in all schools. 
So it goes throughout the country. In New York the Free 
Kindergarten Association was formed to "create public opin- 
ion in favor of incorporating kindergartens as part of the 
school system." By maintaining, at private expense, kinder- 
gartens in missions, settlement houses, and institutions, by 
giving them over to the system when their \alue has been 
proved, and by holding conferences and lectures for kinder- 
garten teachers, the Association tried to show to the school 
authorities and the public the necessity of adequate school- 
ing facilities for children under six. 

Like too many other kindergarten associations, however, 
it has not kept emphasizing the need for kindergartens in 



C M M U N ri' Y \' li V. \. K M S 

Kchorjls becauHC of sentiment about it;-: own private ven- 
tureH. The opportunity for publicity which budget time 
u'iUtv'^ has not been used. Iliere seems to be an impelling 
tf^ndency to argue that the pubUcly supported ones are some- 
what less efficient, less thorough, less complete in their 
efjuipment than those run by outside agencies. This really 
does harm to the kindergarten idea unless there are private 
funds ample enough to supply facilities for all children under 
kindergarten age. 

How many children in your city are of kindergarten age? 

IIow many are accornmofJated in public or in private kindergartens? 

Can you show on a map where the existing kindergartens are and the 

gaps where .lew ones should be started? 
Do 50 children who have been through kindergarten make more rapid 

prr^gresH or kjjarn more easily than U) more who enter school at the 

first grade? 
Should an association in its own kindergarten see that no child is sent 

on to the public school v/ith adenoids, defective eyes or teeth, or 

an unclean hea^l? 
IIow can an outside association see that children are started physically 

right in the public kindergartens? 

Through kindergartens the school is being brought more 
closely in touch with homes. Kindergarten mothers' clubs 
meet in th^e schools to discuss problems of child welfare. In 
the summer time the moth^ers' clubs in New York have a 
camp at Coney Island supported ?jy parents and friends. 
Here mothers and children can spend a day witli trained 
kindergartners to look after the babies while the mothers 
rest. Every public kindergarten teacher in New York is 
expected to do home visiting. She knows the background for 
each child in her care. V/hy should not this valuable infor- 
mation go on with the child through school? If every 
child has kindergarten training, every child's family will be 

used to helpful visits from the teacher. Every child's 

107 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

family history, like his physical record, will go with him 
through the grades. Why should not home visiting be con- 
sidered a privilege for all teachers as well as for kinder- 
gartners? 

And now comes Madame Montessori with her methods for 
developing younger children, the essence of which — so some 
of our educators say — the best American kindergartens have 
been using for years. There will undoubtedly be ''Mon- 
tessori Associations" to further this particular idea through 
the public schools. 

Moving Pictures for Education 

We are not teaching children intelligently, says Thomas 
A. Edison. We are not making an appeal through the eyes 
or to the curiosity of the children. Mr. Edison claims that 
truancy, backwardness, and dullness will disappear when 
geography, history, and arithmetic are taught by moving 
pictures. He said in a recent interview: 

Suppose, instead of the dull, solemn letters on a board or a card, you 
have a little play going on that the little youngster can understand. 
The play begins with a couple of little livelj'^ fellows who carry in a big 
letter C. They put it down, and it stands there. Then they carry in 
an A. Next to it they put down a T. There you have the word "cat." 
In the same way they bring in tiie letters, or Uio letters run in or dodge 
into place, until the sentence stands there, "This is a cat." Then a 
hand appears, pointing, antl in runs a cat for it to point at. Of course, 
the teacher gives the children the names of each letter and pronounces 
each word as they go along. You can see how eagerl.v the youngsters will 
watch every movement on the picture-screen, for there will be some- 
thing going on there every moment. Nothing like action — drama — a 
play that fascinates the eye, to keep the attention keyed up. I don't 
think it'll take them long to learn the alphabet that's lively and full of 
character. 

Take a pump. Did you ever learn out of j'^our school book how a 
pump pumped, and why it pumped? No* but as soon as you actually 

108 



COMMUNITY PROBLEMS 

saw a pump at work you understood right away. Well, in the moving 
picture drama I'll have a man build a pump, make all the parts, and 
put them together. The section of tube facing the camera will be made 
of glass, so the children can see all that's inside of it. They'll see the 
piston drive down, the httle valve or trap-door fly up as the plunger is 
forced tmder water, close down again as the plunger is drawn up and the 
water raised up the tube. Steam engine the same way — they'll see the 
water boil and the steam go through the cylinders and drive the engine. 

Children have described to me months afterward the story 
of a particular photo play. I wish I had been taught history 
by the Edison United States History Series. It begins with 
the battle of Lexington. You see the minute men on the 
farm, the call coming, the determined march, and the fight 
on the bridge — the very same bridge on the very same spot 
where the battle actually occurred; and you see the pitiful 
slaughter, and the women caring for the wounded. It is so 
vivid that your ears feel cheated when, with the puff of 
muskets, comes no explosion of powder. The crossing of 
the Delaware was taken in bleak January weather. Every 
detail follows the pictures and legends that children love, 
and with every historical story is a pretty romance to ''draw" 
the crowd. 

The producers of films are so overwhelmed with demands 
for new pictures that they must satisfy first the popular 
taste. They are beginning, however, to forestall the inevi- 
table demand for educational films. The Edison studio is 
particularly glad to have scenarios on educational subjects. 
They have cooperated with the Russell Sage Foundation, 
National Kindergarten and Playground Associations, Milk 
Committees, and other uplift agencies, in producing films for 
which the agency furnishes the central idea. 

The General Film Company, 200 Fifth Avenue, New York, 
has published a catalogue of Education and Entertainment 
hy Motion Pictures. Think what opportunities for instruc- 
tion this list includes: philosophy, religion, mythology, 

109 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

sociology ("The Visiting Nurse," ''Lily of the Tenements"), 
local government, the army and the navy, education, customs, 
and popular life, folk lore, chemistry, physical geography, 
botany, zoology, all the useful arts from canal engineering 
to milking, the fine arts, outdoor sports, literature of all 
languages, geography and travel in all countries, and his- 
tory. One of the most wonderful films, taken by a com- 
bination of x-ray, microscope, and camera, shows the embry- 
ology of the chick, how the tissues form and develop. An- 
other gives the folding and unfolding of beautiful flowers. A 
third shows the butterfly emerging from the cocoon. Cur- 
rent events are told in motion pictures by the Viiagraph 
Monthly and the Paihc Weekly, which are advertised 
usually in the larger theaters. Most of the films now pro- 
duced are su])mitted to the National Board of Censorship, a 
voluntary group of men and women whose decision is 
considered final by a large majority of producers. Over 
6,000,000 feet of film have been cut out by this board, not 
to mention changes made by manufacturers themselves 
before they submit their photo plays. 

With many films proving what can be taught by pictures, 
with the un([uestionable popularity of moving pictures 
among children, it remains only to cheapen and perfect the 
reproducing arrangements. It is possible now to buy a 
small machine for $50 suitable for home or school use, and 
the films arc in circulation like library books. The flicker 
is becoming less noticeable and less hard on the eyes in the 
work of better companies. 

Many of us are looking forward to the day when each 

school room will have its picture machine, and when special 

series of films will be used to supplement our elementary, 

high, and technical education. Before this happy time for 

children comes, parents and teachers must be convinced 

that motion pictures are worth while and interesting. At 

110 



COMMUNITY PROBLEMS 

teachers' conventions some picture companies are exhibiting 
motion pictures for school use. To hasten the day when 
our children may benefit by this new educational method we 
must make the smaller theaters fit places to go, well lighted, 
well ventilated, and fireproof. This requires law and the 
enforcement thereof. For information about the best regu- 
lations of motion picture theaters write to the National 
Board of Censorship, People's Institute, 50 Madison Avenue, 
New York. 

As a factor in recreation and amusement pure and simple 
(in more ways than one) the motion picture has been used 
by settlements, social centers, and public lecturers. To 
prove that good pictures with educational tone are a paying 
proposition, the People's Recreation Company, 147 Fourth 
Avenue, New York, has among other ventures leased and 
run two regular motion picture theaters, one in Bridgeport, 
and the other in Brooklyn. At the end of six weeks the the- 
ater in Brooklyn was clearing a profit of 27% on the invest- 
ment. There is a chaperon on duty every night to look 
after girls and children. The exits have been enlarged, and an 
extra fireproof booth installed. The motto of this company is : 

An audience is an opportunity. 
A church has one audience a week. 
A picture theater has seven. 

And its experiments have shown that a theater where no 
expense has been spared in having it safe and comfortable 
can make money. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays 
special programs for children are advertised. 

A club of women in the West is planning to buy a 

small machine and tour the state with educational films 

to waken interest in good motion pictures for school use. 

Their possibilities are so vast for children and education 

that none of us can afford to let commercialism blacken the 

whole art. 

Ill 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

Social Centers in Schools 

Edward J. Ward, speaking of social center development, 
contrasts the school work with the Y. M. C. A. by saying: 
"All you need is the A — Association. Drop the first three 
letters because the social center is for old as well as young, 
for women as well as men, for Jews and unbelievers as well 
as Christians." 

The Public School as a Neighborhood Civic House 

Non-partisan PoHtical Headquarters 

Local Health Office 

Branch Pubhc Library 

Free Lectm'e Center 

Recreation Center 

Moving Picture Theater 

Pubhc Art Gallery 

are some of the topics prepared by the committee on school 
extension of the National Municipal League, and show what 
is being planned for the use of the school house, when it 
shall be related in fact as well as in essence to everything 
in the community. Rochester school reports telling of the 
work of Edward J. Ward, Clarence A. Perry's Wider Use 
of the School Plant, the first conference on social centers 
in Madison, 1911, and the columns and pages in news- 
papers and magazines about phases of the social center 
movement have greatly helped to popularize an idea which 
has not always been successful in practice. Simply because 
it is such a very good idea, the social center is going to be 
established in many places before there is any social spirit 
to utilize it. It is, however, thrilling for even the most 
skeptical to read that all St. Paul's schools are to be opened 
for courses in vocational education, public lectures, and 
entertainments under the St. Paul Institute. I was present 
at the first social center evening in Hoboken, when a party 

112 



COMMUNITY PROBLEMS 

was given under the auspices of the board of education and 
the board of trade. I had to pass by ten saloons and their 
groups of hangers-on in a short walk from the car. The 
pleasant school house did seem a partial solution of this 
problem. It was packed for the program of speeches and 
music by local talent, and more packed for the dancing. 

In Jersey City a remarkable social development has 
taken place in the last year. A group of young men and 
women calling themselves the '' School Extension Com- 
mittee" secured permission to use certain buildings at 
night, and opened a series of dances, "everybody welcome." 
Each night two of the committee were present, prepared to 
enforce the few simple rules — no rowdyism, no improper 
dancing, and hats off. The first two or three parties were 
marred by the forcible ejection of some intractable 'Houghs." 
Nothing like that happens now, and the dances are growing 
in popularity. Other buildings have been opened, and 
clubs, classes, and concerts have been started. The work 
grew so in six months that a paid director was put in charge 
of the volunteer committee. 

Groups of business men have seen the value of the social 
spirit in their cities. The South Bend Chamber of Com- 
merce is urging the wider use of school buildings. In Los 
Angeles the practicability of schools as polling places was 
proved because the City Club and the Woman's Club took 
up the matter. To illustrate what can be done with centers 
in rural communities, Mr. Frank P. Holland, publisher of 
Farm and Ranch and Holland's Magazine, has campaigned 
through Texas organizing the Southwestern Social Center 
Conference. The Troy State Normal School and other 
institutions in Alabama, using social opportunities to induce 
people to stay on the land instead of abandoning their farms 
for city life, have arranged entertainments in the schools. 
They are mostly lectures, lantern shows, and selections on 

113 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

the victrola. Occasionally dinner is furnished at the school, 
and an all-day session is held. Most of the entertainers give 
their services without charge, and transportation is fur- 
nished by owners of automobiles. "Friends of the new 
movement anticipate that it will be a powerful factor in 
adding to the pleasures of rural life by furnishing additional 
opportunities to the country folk for recreation, culture, 
and social intercourse." 

To facilitate social expression through schools, we must 
have more free access to school property or recognized appro- 
priations in the budget for this purpose. Parents' associa- 
tions ought to be able to meet in their schools without 
endless petitioning and red tape. When we want to start 
a club of high school girls, we ought to be able to use a room 
in the late afternoon or evening. But this putting in action 
a feeling already present is quite different from "starting a 
social center" with elaborate equipment before there are 
enough people who want to be social in a school house. 
The social center movement opens an endless variety of 
opportunities for paid and volunteer workers, for teachers 
and school patrons, and groups of men and women. It is 
the universal cry for the right to express the feeling of close 
relationship to schools. 



VI 

ORGANIZATIONS SOLELY FOR HELPING SCHOOLS 

Organized Parents 

TEN years ago a few brave women were arguing the po- 
tential benefits that might follow a closer bond of 
interest between the parent and the school. It seems almost 
absurd that a time really was when parents were supposed 
not to be interested in schools and that some principals and 
superintendents to-day still consider them intruders when 
they visit schools. At present the question is how to have 
parent-teacher associations in every school, and how to give 
them information and programs which will directly benefit 
the school. 

A parents' association somewhere has been interested in 
everything — school gardening, decorations, music, play- 
grounds, libraries, equipment, kindergartens, medical ex- 
amination — the whole category of "good things." Where a 
wholly outside organization might fear to tread, the parents' 
\ association, secure in its logical intimacy with the school, has 
' rushed in boldly. 

Indianapolis claims that the "first parent school organi- 
zation" in the country was formed in its midst, and the first 
federation of parents' clubs. Parents' associations may be 
purely social and cultural, and with this purpose alone they 
are extremely worth while. But only when the social, 
friendly relation is supplemented by real cooperation in solv- 
ing school problems do they fulfil their greatest mission. 
9 115 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

Purely child-study mothers' clubs or associations that do 
nothing but talk about class work do not attract the tired 
teacher and apathetic parent. Why should they? It is 
the superintendent's business to add new fuel, to suggest 
new things to be thought about and done, to present school 
affairs as interesting possibilities and definite steps to be 
taken. 

In extending parents' organizations the National Congress 
of Mothers through its parent-teacher department has spent 
some of its best efforts. Circulars and "hows" about or- 
ganization, method, and constitutions are supplied as well as 
women to start new mothers' clubs. Initiative has also 
been taken by many women's clubs and education associa- 
tions. Charitable agencies and civic clubs have parent- 
teacher committees. Principals themselves may take the 
initial step, or the superintendent may send out the call 
to parents generally. The invitation to visit schools in 
Selma (page 60) is accompanied by tables showing just what 
is happening in each grade at each hour. Suppose your 
child is in the sixth grade. You can see his drawing lesson 
if you go to the school at ten o'clock. When many teachers 
and parents have met and talked thus informally, the organi- 
zation of a strong parents' association is a natural and 
logical result. 

A parent's interest is intrinsically local. He cares first and 
foremost about his child and his child's school. Each as- 
sociation of parents is a local group, working for detailed 
changes in one school. Unified city- wide interest is, there- 
fore, unlikely unless there is a central organization to formu- 
late programs, disseminate knowledge, suggest methods, and 
make each local group feel its relation to the whole school 
problem and each school's dependence on every other school. 

Most large cities, where there is not already a central 
federation, need first to know in which schools there are 

116 




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HELPING HOMES VIA SCHOOL HELP 



R G A X I Z A T I X S 

parents' organizations and in which not. To discover this in 
New York it was suggested that the following questionnaire 
be sent to principals in 500 schools. 

How many parents' organizations are connected with your school? 

Parent-teacher associationB? Mothers' clubs? Official name of 

lorganization, if any? 

How many members? Parents? Teachers? Dues 

yearly? When organized? 

Are meetings held yearly? Are meetings social? 

semi-yearly? cultural? 

monthly? on school matters? . . . 

bi-rnonthly? 

weekly? 

Was the organization started by principal?. . . .Teacher?. . . .Parents? .... 
What school improvements are due partially or entirely to the work of 
parents' associations? 



If there is no parents' association in your school, do j^ou plan to organize 

one? When? 

Remarks 

It was also suggested that a pin map be based on the returns 
showing by little black dots where each school is, by red 
pins stuck on top where are parent-teacher associations, and 
by blue pins the mothers' clubs. 

As federations the Philadelphia Home and School League 
and the Boston Home and School Association are perhaps as 
good types as one can find. The Boston body acts as 
leader for 30 local associations by publishing a weekly 
News Letter which tells what parents are doing and what 
special school questions need their concentrated effort. 
The table of contents of the issue published by the committee 
on vocational guidance indicates the concrete helpfulness 
of this little bulletin: 

117 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

Conference of Parents' Associations 

To Parents 

A Few Instances of ^'oc:ltional Cuidance at the Trade School for Girls 

How Parents C^\n Help Their ChiUlren in Choosing a Life A\'ork 

Helpless Children 

How One Vocational Counselor Used the Mason Street Lectures 

To Every Boy and Every Cirl 

Cases of \'ocntional Cniidance 

The Opportunity of the Pai"ents' Association 

The Association has also published a list of books for children 
and for parents. Two visitors are employed to look up 
cases of children needinjx school relief. Theater, school 
decoration, hygiene, and home and school gardens com- 
mittees unify the 30 local associations. Thus, one local 
group of parents is not working; out its salvation in school 
gardens all by itself, but is able to benetit by the most jirt)- 
gressive ideas of gardening that the committee can obtain. 
As a central body the Association is in touch with all other 
agencies which cooperate with schools, drawing on them for 
help and reciprocating with combined parent support of 
others' interests. How it is done Mrs. Fannie Fern Andrews, 
405 ]\Lirlborough Street, Boston, will be glad to tell you. 
If you think the Boston Association leaves any stone un- 
turned, write Mrs. Edwin C. Grice, 3308 Arch Street, Phila- 
delphia, for the story of the Home and School League, its 
work for school lunches and playgrountls, its cooperation 
with all other agencies in the big carnival of parents' clubs 
representing over 00 associations and 38 alhliated organi- 
zations. 

A Parents' Association and a Socialized School 

"We believe that parents are essential to the school and 

the school to them." Thus the principal of a school in the 

most congested part of New York introduces his tale of 

lis 



ORGANIZATIONS 

how the parents' association of 600 members investigated 
moving picture shows, gave material rehef to 80 of the 160 
cases looked up because the children were staying away 
from school, supervised Arbor Day exercises, ran a school 
paper, held an anemic class in a park pavilion, furnished 
materials for children's clubs and milk for anemic children. 
Largely because of the interest of parents and the success 
of the principal in showing how parents might help> the school 
is doing for the neighborhood what a settlement ordinarily 
does. Every child who has not successfully avoided the 
compulsory education law is forced to benefit by these 
socialized activities. Clubs — athletic, musical, arts and 
crafts, dancing, literary, walking — are open to all. A 
Teachers' Child Interest Committee keeps in touch with 
''agencies which may be of help to the school, follows up 
chronic cases of disorder and places children that are weak 
under the control of strong teachers." A visitor is employed 
by the school to investigate home conditions and take chil- 
dren to hospitals — the time-consuming work that grade 
teachers cannot do. A garden for ungraded children is 
maintained by the parents' association. More than $800 
has been spent on decorations for classrooms and assembly 
hall, and other funds on milk and blankets for the anemic 
class, a piano, and equipment for crippled children. Even 
all this is a "small amount of what the neighborhood de- 
mands," 

These activities the board of education has not yet money 
to support. One of them, giving relief, is said to be neces- 
sary because of the inefficiency of agencies which ougnt 
to be doing it; others are logically "special" for the district. 
Settlements are appealing for and getting plenty of money 
for just the same sort of work; but because this service 
happens to be given by a school, supposedly under public 
support, the parents' association has difficulty in raising 

119 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

money. Parents and teachers together see what needs to 
be done. The next step is to convince the city and philan- 
thropists of the opportunity in sociaUzed schools. 

What So7ne Mothers^ Clubs Are Doing 

Here is a story from Richmond, Vu-ginia, where every 
public school has an active mothers' club working for its 
best interests. 

By federating themselves these mothers are aiming at a 
complete cooperative system between schools, city officials, 
and volunteer organizations. They, the mothers, have a 
room in the old Richmond High School, with couches, tea- 
table, and books, where they meet teachers or have a nice 
social time among themselves. ''It places mothers where 
they should be — in the school." With this room as head- 
quarters, cooperation has developed. Playgrounds have 
been established in almost every school yard, financed by 
the city and run by a joint committee of the city council 
and the mothers' club. One mother is responsible for and 
supervises each playground, though a paid dii'ector oversees 
the games. 

In matters of school health the mothers call with unfailing 
responsiveness on the city health board, the visiting nurse 
association, and the medical or dental societies. A nurse 
has been placed in the high school, and several schools have 
had continuous service from the visiting nurses who are on 
call also for playground accidents. The mothers, by stim- 
ulating professional interest, have arranged many health 
lectures with a view to securing medical inspection, and at 
their suggestion dental treatment has been given free to 
several hundred children. 

There are scores of similar stories from other cities, which 
all prove beyond a doubt that mothers organized with a 

120 



ORGANIZATIONS 

program of things to be done make excellent "social brok- 
ers," to bring together organizations public and private, 
individuals professional and lay, as required by each school's 
problems. 

A Mothers^ Council for the School Board 

Six years ago a woman on the school board of Denver 
decided that somehow she must get in touch with each dis- 
trict through the mothers of children attending schools there. 
Therefore a committee was appointed, made of one member 
from the mothers' circle of each school. Thus 65 women, 
representing all kinds and conditions of homes — women with 
the best and poorest opportunities, of different nationali- 
ties and different races — were brought together to work out 
a method by which all parents might help meet the problems 
which daily present themselves to school officials. 

Members of the council are appointed from year to year, 
but some of them have served ever since it started, and 
twelve of these devoted mothers have not missed one of 
the monthly meetings from October to May. Each member 
visits her school each month, talks with the principal on the 
question which is to be discussed at the next council session, 
attends and reports all meetings of parents in her district, 
notes the progress or needs of her school, and gleans sug- 
gestions from similar reports of other districts. Any new 
question which is to be considered by the board of education 
is thoroughly discussed by the council, and the superin- 
tendent knows that each district is familiar with new steps 
which he wishes to take. 

The Fathers' Club 

What are the fathers doing while there is so much talk 
about mothers' clubs, mothers' meetings, and mothers' 
interest in schools? There are fair sprinklings of fathers 

121 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

in parents' associations. Fathers all by themselves in one 
district of Rockford raised $250 to improve the school 
grounds. Their interest called the attention of others to 
that school, and the result was a fine playground. 

For seven years in Reading the Olivet Fathers' Club has 
maintained school gardens. This work began in the boys' 
club of the district, but as it expanded a larger organiza- 
tion became necessary. Consequently the Fathers' Club 
came into being. No employees are hired, but the fathers 
themselves have plowed the land, measured the garden- 
plots, laid water pipes, and furnished the seeds and monthly 
prizes for the best kept gardens. At the end of the season 
there is an ice cream treat for the 150 children who have 
used the garden plots. 

It takes considerable land to accommodate these embryo 
gardeners, and the Fathers' Club might not have been 
able to do this work but for the generosity of one of Reading's 
citizens. Mr. Baer had a quantity of land used only for 
rubbish dumps. He was willing to have this cultivated by 
the children, and year after year has made no charge to 
the Fathers' Club. In the meantime the property has be- 
come more and more valuable, but so have the gardens, 
in the estimation of Mr. Baer, who has recently given to the 
city for park and playground use a dozen acres of land, 
valued at about $30,000. "The gift," writes a business 
man in Reading, ''may be regarded as the legitimate out- 
growth of the Fathers' Club gardening. It is likely that 
the idea would not have occurred to Mr. Baer had it not 
been for the tillage of waste places which this club of work- 
ing men had been engaged in. Mr. Baer, though not di- 
rectly interested in the movement, and knowing little of it 
beyond his annual loan of land, probably thought the work 
was too good to cease, and was in this way led to make the 
gift." 

122 



ORGANIZATIONS 

The Fathers' Club during its half-dozen years of existence 
has enabled several hundred children to raise produce 
worth S 10,000. Combined with really efficient gardening 
are all the advantages of social gatherings for the men, 
as shown in the following letter: 

Dear Sir, — The Olivet Fathers' Club will open its fall season with a 
rally on Monday evening, Oct. 3. We hope to have you meet with us 
on that night, in the Neighborhood Room of the Olivet Boys' Club 
building, entrance on Eisenbrown Street. 

We have in our book many names of fathers who do not often attend 
the club meetings. We are hoping to have all of these members meet 
with us on this night, and we are also hoping for new members. The 
membership fee is but ten cents a year. 

We particularly desire that the men who have gardens should be 
members of the club; also the fathers of the hundreds of children who 
visit our playgrounds. 

There will be a brief program of music and an address. Then Hght 
refreshments will be served, and there will be an inspection of the club 
building. It will be a pleasant, sociable evening, with none but men 
present. 

This is the time for the semi-annual election of officers. 

Educational Associations 

In 1820 this meant an association of ''men and females 
to develop thousands of able and faithful ministers to 
penetrate into the wilderness"; later, a ''ladies' society to 
send to western states competent female teachers of un- 
questionable piety"; and, in 1838, the Otsego County Edu- 
cation Society had as its purpose "to improve common 
schools in this county" by means of a school improvement 
association in each town. The purpose of the New York 
Public Education Association, as stated in its original 
charter, in 1899, was "to study the problems of public 
education, investigate the condition of common and cor- 
porate schools, and to proporse from time to time such 

123 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

changes in their organization, management, or educational 
methods as may seem necessary or desirable." 

At present there are enough public education associations 
to make their yearly congress a stimulating and worth-while 
affair. The oldest and best known of these, in Providence, 
Waltham, New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, have all 
acted as cradles for many cooperative plans with schools. 
From the Waltham Society sprang separate playground, 
kindergarten, and school garden associations. In Provi- 
dence child labor work, sanitary surveys, and hygiene in- 
terest have called the Public Education Association foster- 
mother. There is very little happening in Worcester schools 
to which the society there has not lent a helping hand. It 
is as a central, initiating, guiding force that a public edu- 
cation association does its best work, no matter what name 
it goes by, cooperating with everybody interested in schools 
and stimulating public opinion. As such an agency it has 
unlimited opportunity. 

The weakest part of public education associations gen- 
erally seems to be their lack of an efficient method for their 
routine, everyday work. When a crisis comes, these bodies, 
full of enthusiasm and fervor, give splendid service. But 
in some large cities, the daily, hour after hour work has 
usually been less helpful to schools and communities because 
of lack of facts, lack of funds, lack of continuous con- 
structive program, and lack of supervision of volunteers. 
With these serious lacks in method, other associations may 
perhaps meet, or deserve to meet, the fate of the Newark 
Education Association, which for twelve years had done 
such splendid work that in 1910 the authorities decided 
there was no reason for its existence. It had started kinder- 
gartens, manual training, and playgrounds as part of the 
system, and helped to secure a smaller school board. There 
seemed to be nothing left to do, so the Association dis- 

124 



ORGANIZATIONS 

banded. Was it not almost prodigally wasteful for the 
superintendent to allow it to die after having proved its 
efficiency and value? For when the schools are flourishing 
is the very time to keep the town interested, informed, 
proud; and every city needs a central outside agency con- 
stantly interpreting schools to the community. 



What New York City Offers in Cooperation 

There is, of course, enormousness in the story called 
Outside Cooperation with the Public Schools of Greater New 
York, a report which is available from the Bureau of Mu- 
nicipal Research, 261 Broadway. It is probably true, how- 
ever, that the situation for both school people and out- 
siders in New York is typical for most other cities. Sub- 
stitute for the numbers given here the proportionate figures 
for your city, and both significant facts and constructive 
suggestions will in all probability fit. Since this study was 
made, three other cities have stated that similar investiga- 
tions would be helpful to them. 

The New York story, like every good story, begins with 
its best foot foremost, by telling how much cooperation is 
available for schools. There are nearly 200 separate, dis- 
tinct agencies in touch somehow, and this does not include 
individual parents' associations, whose name is probably 
very much like legion. Some of these organizations are 
simply using schools in carrying on their propaganda, like 
the Anti-Cigarette League or the Boy Scouts. Others, 
like the Y. M. C. A., make special concessions to public 
school pupils and teachers. But the great majority of these 
organizations, relief societies, hospitals, museums, are either 
cooperating directly, actually doing things for school chil- 
dren, or spreading broadcast information, interest, and en- 

125 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

tliiisiasm about school activities, through press comments, 
meetings, bulletins and reports. 

These are the schools' assets; and what has resulted? 
Just the same sort of thing that follows the work of any 
woman's club or civic league. The list of improvements 
initiated or supported and of experiments now under way 
is long enough to put a considerable bm-den of gratitude 
on school and city officials, for it includes fundamentals 
like special classes for crippled children, the physical ex- 
amination of all children, organized athletics for both boys 
and girls, backward children studies, exhibits for natm-e 
work, lectm'es on art and botany, commercial training, pu- 
pil self-government, budget increases, school ''news," and 
school gardens. It is simply because there are more people 
to work in New York that the list is so long. JNIany of these 
good things were not the "first'' in the country. Some were. 
It really is not safe to make that assertion about anything, 
nor does it matter particularly. 'WTien school niu'ses, 
vacation schools, anemic classes, vocational training, and 
recreation centers are due almost entirely to outside initia- 
tive and perseverance, a city is to be congratulated. 

As another measure of outside interest, several years of 
minutes of the board of education and the board of super- 
intendents were studied. Here again the numbers are huge. 
Seven hundred conununications in five years are recorded 
in the official documents; I should, perhaps, say hidden, be- 
cause it seems as if the framers of minutes had tried as hard 
as possible to cover up simple little petitions from outsiders 
with heaps of procedure and referring. To follow the 
course of a petition is like trying to find your way out of a 
''house of labyrinths." However, these 700 conununications, 
offering cooperation, recommending, requesting, objecting — 
letters from individuals, taxpayers' associations, business 
concerns, and other volunteer associations — show that people 

126 



ORGANIZATIONS 

are so interested in almost every particular of school affairs, 
buildings, equipment, course of study, that they want to 
register their sentiments at headquarters. 

From these figures and the authentic reports of agencies 
themselves you get a clear picture of a great city with great 
school problems and a great number of persons willing to 
help with time and money, said to total already $1,000,000 
a year. What appreciation all this cooperation receives is 
'^ another story." One way of testing that is through official 
documents wherein superintendents and school officers 
record the year's progress. When what these 200 agencies 
say they are doing for schools was compared with what the 
annual school report fails to say about outside cooperation, 
instances like this were found: The New York Public Li- 
brary reports branch work with teachers and pupils, special 
arrangements for teachers' circulating libraries, visits to 
schools by school librarians, visits to libraries by classes, 
and vacation school libraries. The city superintendent 
mentions only the cooperation of the library in ''providing 
our summer schools and recreation centers with abundant 
reading matter." 

No mention is made in the school report for 1911 of ex- 
periments carried on in the interest of school children by 
outside agencies; of the Free Dental Clinic for School 
Children and its campaign for school dental clinics; of relief 
agencies spending yearly several thousands of dollars on 
public school relief; of agencies which exist to support budget 
requests made by the board of education; of agencies work- 
ing on problems of truancy, recreation, or school health; or 
of the Public Education Association's work for schools. 

On the other hand, a critical analysis of the reports 
of the agencies themselves showed what an infinitesimal 
proportion of each school problem they are touching, and how 
duplication and lack of follow-up work have kept them from 

127 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

being more efficient. These same lacks in cooperation are 
probably apparent in your city, be it large or small. (Fig. 5.) 

The results of this study for New York indicate that 
several changes are desirable. The most important, a 
central clearing house for outside cooperation, is outlined 
later. The next most important is that there shall be at 
headquarters some one individual to keep track of com- 
munications from the outside, to steer petitions safely by 
the rocks of committee meetings and resolutions, and to 
collect from teachers and principals definite lists of things 
about which outsiders could help. Because newspapers, 
especially school editors, were found very willing to tell 
the city what the schools need, it was suggested that agen- 
cies might make more use of this opportunity for securing 
public understanding of their work. 

Plans for coordinating the work of several agencies on 
one problem led naturally to the suggestion that a conference 
of all outside agencies, city departments, and school offi- 
cials be called to discuss cooperation. This was done by 
the city's board of estimate, and the need for a coordinating 
agency was so clearly shown that a budget cooperation com- 
mittee was appointed for immediate service, and a second 
committee was asked to plan how a central organization 
might take upon itself the duties and opportunities of di- 
recting cooperation with the public schools of New York. 
The president of the board of education promised to appoint 
a committee of the board to confer with the outside organi- 
zation. 

A Central City Coordinator 

A few cities only have seen the need, and met it, of a 
clearing house for outside agencies and individuals inter- 
ested in schools, a convenient meeting ground for school 
people and laymen. In 1909 the Educational League was 

128 



ANAEMIC CHILDREN 
WITHOUT OPEN AIR 
TREATMENT. 




2J''/o 

IN OPEN AIR CLA55E5 




97^ 

UNOERNOURISHED CHILDREN 
k NOT YET BEING ^ 



ARE HAVING LUNCHES 



Fig, 5 

THE BLACK SPACES SHOW WHAT IS STILL TO BE DONE 



HELPl^C SCHOOL CUILDKEN 

organized by roprosontntivos from 74 business men's nsso- 
eiations, patriotic orders, educational, social, and philan- 
thropie societies, "to concentrate the forces now aiming 
independently to give Philadelphia the best possible system 
oi public schools." The danger of such large-scale organiza- 
tion not independently supported is that after one or two 
joint canipaigns. successful ones in Philadelplna. the weld- 
ing ingredient dissolves and each agency slips natiu'all}' 
back into its own little groove. The UXy,^-, needs of schools 
are lost sight of. and smaller organizations again become 
rivals in appealing, rivals in being useful to schools, in 
making their particuhir interests the most important ob- 
jects in the world. 

To combat such a situation, which some cities are iilreadj' 
facing and othei^s are trying to cover up, a strong, well- 
financed central agency is needed for organizing, coordinating, 
and " clearing *' outside cooperation with public schools to: 

H:u-o on file reports and literature of nil .iscencies cooperating with 
public schools in the city, plus important school data: 

Provide information concerning all such agencies and the schools to 
givers, school people, interested citizens aiid associations of teachers and 
principals; 

Analyze promptly the amiual and interim reports from schools and 
point out the opportunities for helping disclosed bj' facts, recommenda- 
tions, discrepancies, and omissions; 

Cooperate with the board of education in issuing and keeping up to 
date a handbook of agencies available for school cooperation and of 
fields not adei^uately coveroil; 

Secure independent financial support sufficient to employ a number 
of exjx^rt supervisors and investigatore for the affiliated committees of 
vohmteers. and to use and make public the results of their work; 

Maintain a mailing list of persons who should be kept prepared for in- 
telligent action on important school problems through current, cumula- 
tive information: 

Keep constantly before the pubhc through the school cohunns of news- 
papers and speci;U :irticles the e-\tent and kind of cooperation being 
given ; 

130 



ORGANIZATIONS 

Outline 100% of sc?iool needs not yet met, showing gaps where 
nothing or too Httle is being done by outsiders; 

Show other cooperating agencies that it is worth while passing on the 
information gathered by their experience to the central agency, which 
should help apply it to the problem tPa-oughout the whole city; 

Affiliate all cooperating agencies by giving them active membership 
on central committees in which they are interested and to which they 
should be able to contribute; 

Invite representatives from teachers' and principals' associations to 
serve on committees; 

Act as a placing bureau for volunteers wishing to work on school 
problems; 

Arrange conferences on school needs with teachers, pjrincipals, super- 
intendents, and parents; 

At budget time and at other critical times help each agency to see and 
to do its part in getting necessary facts so as to give to the community 
the ?jenefit of the work and judgment of all agencies; 

By virtue of its facts and its expertness, maintain independence of 
school authorities as the only way to be progressively helpful. 

It does not require a new, separate agency to make such 
a program a vital force in the community. The work is 
especially suitable for a public education association, but 
can be done equally well by a woman's club, a rehef agency, 
or a settlement. Of course, every city must formulate its 
own program, but the method of carrying it out is the same. 
Without a h)asis of fact, an appreciation of the whole problem 
and continuous watching, recording, and suggesting, no 
agency can attain its maximum efficiency. 

As a ''social broker" a central agency is hindering itself 
when it assumes functions more logically carried on by 
other agencies; yet it is also responsible for showing special- 
izing agencies where and how they are not meeting 100% 
of their particular problems. Initiative in starting things 
should not be left entirely to either school people or to 
the outside agency. Having teachers as members of the 
central organization means being continuously in touch 
with at least some schools. 

10 131 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

Only by keeping constantly in view the larger purpose 
of the organization can special committees escape without 
losing their sense of proportion and their feeling for solid 
things. \Mien a public education association has aroused 
"public opinion" and interest in one experiment, it nmst 
be proved feasible for the entire system; it must have means 
of permanent support tlu"ough the budget before the asso- 
ciation can honestly stop '^ mothering" it. 

Whatever the special needs and interests of the town, 
there are certain committees in a central agency that should 
be permanent, including health and budget conmiittees. 
Temporary investigations, like the visiting teacher and vo- 
cational guidance studies made in New York, are important, 
but the actual contact with schools of many sincerely inter- 
ested men and women is even more valuable for the schools. 

There is no criticism too severe for the organization which, 
because it rests on a tradition of being a leader, prevents 
the development of a ''live" agency with a program and 
vision. 

Could amihing be more unaltruistic than to misstate facts and mis- 
quote officials; to duplicate another's field; to conceal existing ineffi- 
ciency by diverting the attention of outsiders? 

Is tliere value in having people on committees who do not work but 
lend prestige? 

Should volunteers decide on which committee they wish to ser^-e, no 
matter how unfitted they may be for it? 

Should a volunteer be kept on a committee when doing recognizedly 
inefficient work? 

Should conunittee workers be allowed to visit schools without knowing 
beforehand what the schools ought to do and what they are doing? 

Is there any excuse for uninformed cooperation when school reports 
and past newspaper thscussion of school questions are so easily 
secured? 

Because the opportunity for this type of organization is 
so boundless is reason enough for being impatient with 

132 



ORGANIZATIONS 

agencies, however worthy their purpose, which are not 
''making good." 

What Rural Schools Need 

They need nearly everything — ^and usually they need it 
badly — that city schools need, clean buildings, efficient 
teachers, adequate equipment, and medical examination. 
They usually need more money, and a great deal more 
interest from town and city women and men. 

What Oregon women did about the sanitation of rural 
schools is described on page 153. The State Federation of 
Women's Clubs in Missouri, through its committee on edu- 
cation, wrote to every county superintendent a personal 
letter explaining what the women hoped to do for schools, 
and inclosed the circular which was being sent to all clubs, 
to 500 principals in small towns and villages, and 500 school 
patrons in other rural districts. These questions were in- 
cluded: 

Are your school buildings and premises regularly inspected as to 
sanitary conditions? 

Have you a county high school? Why not? 

Could you have better schools and teachers if several adjoining dis- 
tricts united in one larger school? Why does not your school dis- 
trict move in the matter? Have you talked with the state super- 
intendent about it? 

Cannot you have a patrons' meeting at j^our school building and talk 
matters over? 

Each of the nine chairmen of the nine federated club 
districts was asked to have her committee visit a rural 
school and report on its condition. One woman visited 
every rural school in her county. Almost every report 
emphasized the need for good roads as a fundamental school 
problem. 

The National Congress of Mothers, through its country 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

life department, is forming parents' associations to help 
in small town and rural schools, though they are not always 
successful at first. In Stanberry, the parent-teacher asso- 
ciation (which formed in an undertaker's shop, by the way) 
thought it could not interest either townspeople or school 
superintendent. By advice of the organizer it started a 
*' clean-up day" for the town and was so successful that 
papers, citizens, and superintendent "sat up and took 
notice." 

"I send the newspaper reports of meetings in one town 
to timid circles in order to spur the latter to activity," 
writes the organizer. At the Louisiana State Fair a "model 
home," built by the State Congress of Mothers, is entirely 
furnished by handiwork of the children in the Shreveport 
public schools. "Better roads for little children" is the 
slogan in rural districts. Stereopticon lectures on conditions 
"before" and "after" changes have been made convince 
townspeople that they should spend money in this way for 
school improvement. School associations for good roads, 
road cadet companies, and pick-and-shovel clubs get the 
children interested. State and national departments of 
highways and agriculture are cooperating. 

I wish there were space enough for the details of what 
parents' clubs in rural districts are doing. The}' suggest so 
many ways of helping. For example, one club by a box- 
supper and school entertainment raised money to paint and 
light the interior of the school building. Another secured 
the installation of a sanitary fountain and individual drink- 
ing cups in the schools. A third raised several thousand 
dollars for road improvement, organized a fathers' associa- 
tion to carry out the plans, secured money for a fireless 
cooker with which to furnish warm luncheons for the 
country children who came in to the school, took subscrip- 
tions for a stereopticon for the consolidated school, framed 

134 



ROAD CADETS AND BRIDGE BUILDERS 




EVERYBODY HELPS IN THE COUNTRY 
GOOD ROADS TO RURAL SCHOOLS: LOUISIANA CONGRESS OF MOTHERS 



ORGANIZATIONS 

a large gift of pictures for the school, and assisted the 
Girls' Mushroom Club in the raising and sale of mushrooms. 
For detailed suggestions about rural child welfare, address 
Mrs. Frank de Garmo, Country Life Department, National 
Congress of Mothers, 2186 Washington Avenue, St. Louis. 

State granges have frequently done much for the better- 
ment of rm-al schools, as the superintendent in Maine says. 
They are seeing the advantages to farmers of having good 
grammar schools and high schools that teach sensible sub- 
jects like scientific agriculture. 

But the things really wrong with rural schools lie deeper 
than mere lack of school facilities and equipment. They 
are to be found in state supervision and county boards of 
education, in the relation of schools to universities, in budget 
making, census taking, school expenditures and accounting, 
training schools, administrative problems, methods of re- 
porting attendance, promotion, or age distribution, and in 
the need for agricultural courses. Wisconsin, through ex- 
perts from the Bureau of Municipal Research employed 
by the State Board of Public Affairs, Madison, has had 
made a complete survey of rural school administration. 
Similar studies might be made by a state university, with 
students to do the field work, or by a state federation of 
women's clubs. And it is only by thus getting at funda- 
mentals that rural school problems can be efficiently solved. 

Rural School Improvement Leagues 

Of the 200 school improvement associations in Arkansas, 
with a membership of 10,000 men and women, the super- 
intendent writes: 

These organizations have been and are continuing to be of very great 
benefit to the schools, and the citizens are coming to understand more 
fully and much more definitely the needs and defects of our public schools, 
as well as their advantages. 

135 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

The three points that are distinctive in the work of school 
improvement leagues are the value set on newspaper pub- 
licity, the advantages of close cooperation with state and 
county authorities or with lay organizations, and the sim- 
ilarity of needs existing everywhere. In the reports from 
each state the words ''better buildings," "ventilation," 
''physical welfare," "playgrounds," "home economics," and 
"agriculture" reappear constantly. "Frequent notes to 
newspapers," or a press bureau sending at regular in- 
tervals articles to parish papers and notices to the 
county papers, make^ known these needs to the towns- 
people. 

A few years ago the club women of Kentucky suddenly 
realized that their state ranked low in educational efficiency. 
At the instigation of the Southern Education Board a trained 
organizer was employed for four weeks by the State Fed- 
eration. Women raised $4,000, of which $800 went to build 
a model school and support it for three years, as a demon- 
stration of what a rural school might be. The rest of the 
Federation's fund was spent on traveling expenses of the 
organizers, who reached 112 out of 119 counties. Many 
club women went on the road as volunteers to start school 
improvement leagues and outline programs for those al- 
ready organized. What fundamental work had to be done 
was shown, for example, when one county league built 
itself a school house, saw that elementary agriculture and 
domestic science were taught, and provided a wagon to 
transport children in bad weather. In 1910 the women's 
clubs agreed to a two years' trial under the following co- 
operative plan: The expenses of a full-time, salaried organ- 
izer to be paid by the Southern Board and the State Fed- 
eration; the state department of education to furnish office 
room, stationery and postage, and the state superintendent 
to supervise. For the bulletin on school improvement 

136 



ORGANIZATIONS 

work, write to Mrs. Charles P. Weaver, Department of 
Education, Frankfort. 

This semi-official arrangement will probably end in a 
state bm-eau like the School Improvement Department in 
Tennessee, under Miss Virginia P. Moore. Her story of 
what has been done since 1908, when she began working 
under the Southern Education Board and the Cooperative 
Education Association, is extremely suggestive as told in 
the reports of the state superintendent of schools : 750 asso- 
ciations formed; visits to the most remote rural schools; 
uniform ''clean-up day," when every school house and ground 
was made thoroughly spotless by teachers, pupils, and 
parents; 60 flourishing county school improvement asso- 
ciations; 17,000 teachers pledged to organize leagues in 
their schools — it is almost too good to believe. Bulletins 
suggesting forms of organization, regular school improve- 
ment columns in local papers, and the wholesale distribu- 
tion of a button with "Health, Comfort, Beauty for our 
Schools" on it, have added to the popularity of the move- 
ment. At state and county fairs prizes of from $10 to $50 
are offered for the best photographs and sketch of 100 words 
illustrating the schools ''before" and "after" the league 
got into action. 

The things accomplished by committees of each league 
include abolishing stoves and pipes in several hundred rooms 
and putting strong shades at the windows. "Hundreds of 
schools that were never scrubbed since the houses were 
built, have had frequent scrubbings." In reading the list 
you will be astonished at the sensible, fundamental things 
parents and teachers do, and at the years which had passed 
without their being done. 

The social-betterment side of school improvement means 
new roads, bridges, agricultural instruction, libraries, town- 
beautiful movements, and health lectures. It is conununity 

137 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

work. Tennessee has solved satisfactorily the problem of 
efficient outside cooperation with rural schools by having 
each district a center and each improvement league a clear- 
ing house for everything needed in that school. When the 
tasks of organizing are over, the mechanism of county and 
state leagues will help secure the legal, fiscal, and admin- 
istrative changes necessary for all rural schools in the state. 

State-wide Combinations for Education 

The story of a cooperative effort in Texas made by edu- 
cators and other citizens is told so well in the little pam- 
phlet, The Conference for Education in Texas — Its History, 
Its Aims, Its Work, that I shall quote bits and advise 
you to write to Mr. Lee Clark, Austin National Bank 
Building, Austin, for samples of the bulletins, reports, and 
calls to action which are being sent out constantly by this 
organization. In 1907 an invitation was issued to business 
and professional men and other persons interested in schools. 
More than 500 enthusiastic citizens representing all sections 
of the state and various lines of business and professional 
activity met, and a permanent organization was effected. 
"Educational evangelism" is its watchword; its method, 
cooperation with press, teachers, superintendents, state de- 
partments of education, various civic organizations, and 
"with all other agencies that seek to improve the schools 
of the people." Regularly press items are sent out to the 
newspapers in the hope that some of the subjects may be 
of sufficient interest for publication. "Any or all of the 
items may be used without giving credit." 

"All-year-round campaigns," "all forms of educational 
endeavor," "organize and unify effort," "to perfect ma- 
chinery of school administration," are well-sounding ideals, 
and what the Conference has done justifies them. In 1910 

138 



ORGANIZATIONS 

the Conference possessed 10,000 members and the indorse- 
ment of organizations as widely representative as the Texas 
Bankers' Association, the Texas Farmers' Congress, the 
Federation of Women's Clubs, State Teachers' Association, 
Texas Lumbermen's Association, Texas Women's Press 
Association, Central West Texas Federation of Commercial 
Clubs, and the Texas and Pacific Teachers' Association. 

Lectures on school conditions have been delivered whole- 
sale throughout the state. Over 300,000 bulletins have been 
distributed containing reliable information on the need for 
rural high schools, local tax action, and school buildings. 
Comparative measures of school efficiency show where 
Texas stands in relation to other states. Increases for ten 
years in school funds, in teachers, and school houses tell in 
the taxpayers' language what education in Texas is doing. 

Model plans for pretty one-room, two-room, three-room 
school houses have been sent free to officials, and maps of 
Texas have been prepared, giving by counties the scholastic 
population, the average daily attendance, and the number 
of days in the school year. From it the sections needing 
help or needing administrative revision stand out clearly 
and raise questions in even the ''most lay" mind about 
uneven distribution of school funds in counties where $4.09 
and $49.53 represent the per capita tax. The Conference 
has also supported progressive legislation on educational 
questions, and organized successfully ''the most effective 
state-wide campaign ever waged in any of the southern 
states for a constitutional amendment authorizing better 
financial support for conmaon schools and other school im- 
provements." Advances to be taken by Texas's educational 
system during the next year are outlined also. 

Appealing to school people and outsiders for help in 
legislative campaigns, keeping definite educational needs 
constantly before a large group of citizens, and acting as a 

139 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

central office for school affairs, the Conference fills a place 
in Texas that in most other states is vacant. It is not 
rivaling any other organization, because it is all other or- 
ganizations, non-partisan, efficient, progressive, and, above 
all, continuously ''on the job." 



VII 

SPECIAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN 

Women on School Boards 

" A 71 7" HEN the right woman becomes a candidate she will be 
Y Y easily elected. A mediocre man is not such a mistake 
as a mediocre woman." In the majority of cases women 
have such a struggle to get on the board that only the 
superfine succeed. For two years in Denver a school elec- 
tion was contested before the legality of the woman candidate 
was proved. Many people think that the mere fact of being 
a woman fits one for service on a school board. Given the 
choice between an intelligent man and an equally intelligent 
woman, the latter will probably have more time and more 
interest in details. Ask any woman on a school board who 
does most of the work. It would be interesting if board 
members kept time-sheets. The argument is, of course, 
logical, that women are especially interested in children, 
that their training, experience, and environment fit them 
especially for work with children. But because our present 
standard for school commissioners is not nearly high enough, 
either for men or for women, we cannot afford to lower it 
one degree even for women. We cannot excuse them for 
lack of information simply because they are women and 
know how to rear children. 

The best way to prove women's ability is through club 
school cooperation. Few educators know more about 

141 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

school business than an efficient club leader with years of 
experience along various lines of school activity. Con- 
versely, one measure of communities' valuation of club 
work so far may be the small number of women school 
board members in the cities where so much cooperation is 
reported. Of 125 cities reporting, 15 have one woman, 
11 have two, throe have three women, and 9G have no 
women on the school board. In Oregon, of a possible 9,000 
school directors, only 100 are women. 

A woman never has a bigger opening for community service 
than when on a school board; her beneficiaries are every 
teacher, pupil, and parent in the city. There is unlimited 
opportunity not only for improving the methods, admin- 
istration, and personnel of the system, but for the so-called 
*' educating" of the rest of the board on the sociological 
aspects of school work. A western school board member told 
me most graphically of her efforts to make the men members 
see the community value of social centers, school nurses, and 
efficient attendance officers. School board service is some- 
thing to be ''called" to, something to make ourselves worthy 
of. Though they may well consider themselves more capa- 
ble than a great many men now serving, how many women 
can honestly consider themselves fit for the position? 

With the present tendency to smaller boards and spe- 
cialized interest, it becomes more important than ever to 
keep the standard for school service high. "Wlio should be 
appointed as school commissioners, whether they be men 
or women? This question was recently asked of the Bureau 
of Municipal Research by a New Jersey mayor. The answer 
was epitomized in these questions: 

Are they (men or women) interested in the success of the public schools? 
Do they (men or women) know reasonably well the local conditions 

which the public school is supposed to express and the local needs 

wliich the public school is supposed to meet? 

142 



OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN 

Are they (men or women) in the habit of basing judgment on facts? 

Are they in the habit of working from first-hand information instead 
of hearsay? 

Are they capable of managing any other business where, as in Mont- 
clair, there are one hundred subordinates and twenty-two thou- 
sand patrons? 

Can they use effectively the six sources of information — annual report 
of board of education and its superintendent; monthly statements 
submitted to the board at its monthly meetings; statements made 
directly to the commissioners by teachers and principals; personal 
observations; state and national reports on pubhc schools; and 
general discussion of school topics by newspapers, school journals, 
popular magazines and citizens? No school trustee can fulfil his 
trusteeship who is not conscientiously seeking to make the most of 
these six sources of information for himself and for the public. 

Is any one (woman or man) qualified who despises records of work done 

and of needs unmet, which she or he is apt to call "mere statistics"? 

Who thinks that 20% of the children are predestined to fail each term? 

Who has contempt for the public and thinks it can never understand 

the intricacies of school management? 
Who in intellect or strength of character is inferior to teachers or 

principals? 
Who has never had experience in applying efficiency tests to subor- 
dinates and to her or his own results? 

For the children's sake we may be grateful that the time 
is coming when it will no longer be considered sufficient 
for a school board member to be simply willing to serve, 
just as it is no longer sufficient for a social worker to give 
willing service unless that service is efficient. 

Visiting Schools with Official Sanction 

A local school board is little more than an outside visiting 
committee. The principle behind it is to have, besides the 
central group of commissioners with executive powers, a 
local body which is acquainted with each school, its condi- 
tion and needs. This is practically what rural school im- 
provement leagues are, though they have no state authority 

143 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

with which to do their visiting. In some cities local boards 
in each district are required by law. In the New York City 
charter their powers of investigation and reporting, of 
publicity and pressure from facts, are practically without 
limit. But when the members are mostly business men, 
they are frequently too occupied to attend meetings and 
visit schools, and they then complain that local school 
boards have no ''power." With the foundation of facts 
and actual observation of district schools, and with the 
public support which local school boards can command, 
there is no end to their possibilities when the right people 
are working with the right method. And this is true of 
practically any lay body in any sized city or rural com- 
munity. 

A college graduate who has for years been helping with 
entertainments for charity and supervising a small class of 
defective children has been appointed to the local board 
in her city. She has now seen in miniature how the entire 
school system works, while still having the joy of contact 
with individuals who want her interest and sympathy. 
She sees the relation of organized charit}' to schools, the need 
for playgrounds and vocational guidance, and, while doing 
only part-time work, feels herself a part of the great school 
mechanism. Every bit of her personality counts, every 
piece of constructive service means help for that district 
and suggestions for other districts, and for other cities. It 
is one of the most stimulating opportimities open to men 
and women who want social service, and it is potentially the 
very best training school for the school commissionership. 
But because members of local boards or of visiting com- 
mittees with official authority have so far been at liberty 
to serve efficiently or otherwise, no standard has been set 
for what members should know or how they should work. 

Many suggestions for local boards and their relation to 

144 



OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN 

outside agencies in their districts are contained in the report 
of corresponding bodies in London, i.e., Children's Care Com- 
mittees, made up of two teachers and three lady managers 
for each school. They act as intermediaries between schools, 
dispensaries, relief societies, and employment agencies. 
The need for these committees grew out of a situation similar 
to that now existing in many of our school districts, where 
" much charity was dispensed in a haphazard way. . . . Side 
by side with this stream of charity child misery flowed on 
unchecked." While there are numerous agencies ready and 
willing to help schools in our cities, needs have been unmet 
because for years there has been no such ''social broker" 
to bring individuals and outside agencies together. 

Should not every school visitor in city or town have filed 
a list of agencies available for cooperation, notify teachers 
of these resom-ces, and know the needs of each school and 
of each child who is a care or worry to his teacher? 

Is not the local school board or visiting committee the 
logical clearing house for outside cooperation in each dis- 
trict? 

Who^s Responsible for School Sanitation? 

No one with a conscience can answer ''Not I." We are 
supposed to be a civilized nation, yet what shocking things 
one sees and reads of! Think of the mothers of a city letting 
some 500 children stay in a condemned fire trap, ill-heated, 
badly lighted, and unclean, simply because "nothing could 
be done about it." It is everybody's affair, physicians', 
business men's, and primarily women's. Much can be done 
by remedying bad things, more by making the repetition 
of mistakes impossible. 

May a school board build a cheap, unhygienic building in your town? 
Are the janitors allowed to clean with dry, dusty rags or feather dusters? 
If you rated each school building on a basis of 100, taking off 10 points 

145 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

for pour ventilation, unclonn rooms, insiitru-iont liij;ht, ami lack of 

fire precautions, how would each school stanil? 
Have you ever listed the detailed concrete changes that each school 

requires before it Cixoi be a healthful, safe place for children to 

spend their days? 
How does housekeepinti; in the schools conijiaro with hovisekeeping at 

your home in cleanliness, heating arrangements, tlie efficiency of 

servants, and the promptness of necessary ]-epairing? 
Is it right for a school to be less clean than a home? 

This hist question has made mothers work in earnest for 
school sanitation as a tieki in which they walk on familiar 
gronnd. Individual mothers go to see schools for them- 
selves. Croups of women make more or less scientific 
studies of school conditions. Yet for every woman actively 
concerned with this question there are 1,000 who either do 
not consider it an important question or do not see how 
anything can be done about it. In only 51 out of 125 cities 
have women told us they are paying attention to school 
sanitation. Are conditions perfect in the other 74, and in 
the many other cities which did not report? 

A standard for scientific investigation was set by the 
Boston branch of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae in 
1S95. .Alice Freeman Palmer, as a member of the board of 
education, realized that you cannot have high-grade teaching 
without having sanitary schools. With the full cooperation 
of state, city, and school officials, the Association made a sur- 
vey by districts, using uniform questionnaires and methods 
of investigation. To decide technical matters of plumbing 
and ventilation expert inspectors were secured, and samples 
of air found in classrooms were analyzed. The questions 
to be answered by head masters and teachers referred to 
building sites, materials, fire escapes, sanitaries, heating, 
cloak rooms, sweeping, dusting, window space, seating 
capacity — in short, to every matter affecting healthful 

school conditions for teachers and pupils. The invest iga- 

146 



OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN 

tion was made quietly, with no publicity, but with prompt- 
ness and thoroughness. TVTien it had been going on for a few 
months the mayor announced that he was going to appoint 
experts to "report on existing sanitary conditions in the 
schools." So the Association's committee finished its work 
.quickly and submitted to the mayor, with recommendations, 
'its report to be used as a basis for the constructive work of 
the experts. The summary tells of fire escapes found locked, 
of uncleaned cesspools, worthless systems of ventilation, 
inadequate air space, and about every other "bad" that 
schools can be party to. 

As a result of this study janitors are required to use 
damp sweeping; adjustable desks were recommended; build- 
ings utterly unfit for school purposes were condemned; and 
an appropriation of §300,000 for a part of the needed 
changes was raised. As an indirect result, Boston received 
a new school code. For copies of the exhaustive questions 
used in the investigation, write to Mrs. Caroline S. Atherton, 
82 Ptuthven Street, Roxbury. 

Twelve years ago a similar survey was made in Balti- 
more by the Arundell Club, whose sanitary connnittee, 
primed with questions on specific subjects, went to all the 
schools. Visitors were asked not to use the questionnaires 
openly or visit "with a critical attitude." As a result 
of this study many changes were made by the authorities. 
In Providence a study of conditions in 80 schools was 
undertaken by a committee of the Public Education Asso- 
ciation. The investigation was based on the Boston ques- 
tions, remodeled to suit a smaller city and completed by 
suggestioEkS from the superintendent and a physician. 
The report takes up separately provision for wraps, base- 
ments, cleaning, sanitaries, and heating. It advised that a 
permanent visiting comnaittee with an expert for the in- 
spection of ventilation and lighting be appointed, that the 
U 147 



HELPING SCHOOL C H I L L^ R E N 

feather duster be forbidden, that slates be abohshed, and 
that tests for eyesight be introduced. Emphatically the 
committee urged the adequate physical examination of 
children by a staff of inspectors who should also have 
charge of sanitation and hygiene. The report is full of 
interesting details, and is available from Mrs. Carl Barus, 30 
Elmgrove Street, Providence. 

From the questionnaires used by these three cities the 
N(iw Jersey Federation of Women's Clubs has evolved a 
blank for a state-wide study of school conditions. It covers 
the most important points without demanding detailed 
answers which tax the patience and ingenuity of lay inves- 
tigators and is reproduced here with additions for use in 
rural communities. 

Stories of ''clean-ups" inaugurated and carried through 
by women would fill volumes — of shocking conditions 
found in some schools, of the splendid arrangements in others 
that make you want to keep working until all children 
ev(;rywhere have ccjually helpful environments to study in. 
Clean schools require watchfulness. A good housekeeper 
inspects (constantly. What would happen to dust and weekly 
cl(;anings if she did not? Investigating and reporting on 
conditions which actually exist is only the first step. So 
often the sense of responsibility for clean schools stops after 
something, anything, no matter what, has been accom- 
plished. Women write, "We secured sanitary improve- 
ments." You ask what, and learn that dry sweeping, 
perhaps, was abolished in one school. That is highly com- 
mendable, and the more reason for keeping on until all 
buildings are thus improved. 

For a series of articles with definite suggestions about 
"School Janitors and Health," by Dr. Helen C. Put- 
nam, write to the Child Welfare Magazine, Philadel- 
phia. 

148 



OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN 




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OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN 

Clean Rural Schools 

Women's work for clean schools in Oregon illustrates 
splendidly "a strong pull all together." The state is not 
thickly populated, club organizations are new, and great 
distances make concerted effort difficult along any line. 
But the women of Oregon have triumphed decidedly. First, 
a questionnaire was sent throughout the state asking for 
information in regard to school buildings and grounds. 
"The replies from city, town, and rural districts show that, 
while interest has been taken in the direction of improve- 
ment, much remains to be done." Then a circular was sent 
to the school boards of the state, calling attention to suitable 
ventilation, to whether light comes from left side or rear, 
whether desks are suited to children, whether there are 
individual drinking cups, and whether stoves are sur- 
rounded with a jacket. Emphasis, with suggestions from 
experienced authorities, is laid on proper attention to toilet 
arrangements, "which are often entirely inadequate." To 
secure public opinion in each community which would 
stimulate and support the school authorities in making 
necessary changes, a little four-page folder reproduced here 
v/as distributed among the women's clubs: 

SCHOOL SANITATION 

What to Observe 
School Grounds: 

1. Are they covered with sod? 

2. Are they well drained? 

3. Are the walks in good condition? 

4. What kind of walks — board, gravel, etc.? 

5. Are there any trees and shrubs? 

6. Is there a fuel room? 

7. Are the grounds attractive and homelike? 

8. Is there any place where children may play, sheltered from in- 

clement weather? 

153 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

Outhouses: 

1. Are the outhouses kept locked before and after school hours? 

2. Are the outhouses as far apart as the grounds will permit? 

3. Are they screened and vines planted to overrun the screens? 

4. Are the walls kept free from obscene language and pictures? 

5. Are the stools kept clean? 

6. Are the vaults kept in a sanitary condition? 

a. What plan of disinfecting the vaults? 

b. What kind of disinfectant is used? 

The School Building: 

1. What color are the walls? 

2. Are the walls free from marks? 

3. Are there a few good pictures placed on the walls? 

4. What are the pictures? 

5. Is there a janitor employed, and does he do his work well? 

a. How often are the floors washed? 

b. How often are the blackboards cleaned? 

6. What method of ventilation is provided? Is it effective? If not, why not? 

7. Does the teacher use good judgment in ventilating her room? 

8. Is temperature of room above 68°? 

9. Is the stove placed in the corner of the room and surrounded with 

a jacket? 

10. Is the general atmosphere of the room homelike? If not, why not? 

11. What method of lighting? 

a. Number, size, and position of windows? 

b. Arrangement of window shades? 

12. Are the desks and seats the right height for the children? 

13. What provision is made for drinking? 

14. Are the walls well Ughted? Ventilated? 

15. Is the building provided with fire escapes? 

16. Do the doors open outward? 

17. What place is provided for pupils in which to eat lunches brought 

from home? 

18. Is there a shelf for lunch pails? 

19. Is there provision for warm lunch? 

20. Is there a place to hang wraps? 

21. Is there a book case? 

Suggestions: 

1. The lecturer should have a copy of the state board of health bulletins. 

2. It might be well to invite the county superintendent and the 

154 



OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN 

teacher of the district in which the meeting is held to take part 
in the discussion. 

3. The school houses in the district represented in the grange should 

be inspected prior to the date of the discussion of these topics. 

4. As a result of this discussion some one should be appointed to confer 

with the school boards to the end that needed improvements may 
be made. 

Clean Ventilation 

After a visit to an open air class for 25 children in a school 
of 2,000 children, coming in to the ordinary classroom with 
40 boys in it was like going from the ice box porch into a 
kitchen heavy with stale odors. Is it not wrong to encourage 
the open air class for 25 without trying to correct poisoned 
surroundings for the 1,975? Superintendent Ella Flagg 
Young, by ordering every school room in Chicago opened 
to fresh air three times daily, has done more to make people 
think straight on the question of fresh air than all the open air 
rooms in the country can do. The test of pure air and 
successful ventilation is in what your own nose tells you 
when you come in from outdoors. If you visit a school and 
find foul air in cold weather when it "interferes with the 
ventilating system" to have windows open, something is 
wrong. If it is the system, consult an engineer; if it is the 
principal who will not let windows be opened, consult 
the superintendent, the press, the mothers' clubs; if it is the 
individual teacher, consult the principal. Occasionally you 
hear it said that parents are not to blame for the air in school 
rooms. Parents are to blame, everybody is to blame, who 
has a nose and lungs that tell her the truth. 

Engineers are beginning to agree that there is something 
wrong with ''systems." It is unfortunate that such expen- 
sive ones have been elaborately incorporated in many new 
schools. Recently there was a meeting of the Society 
of American Engineers for the sole purpose of discussing 

155 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

the problems of public school ventilation. In New York the 
Society of Heating and Ventilating Engineers is cooperating 
with the board of education in making a study of ventilation. 
Women's clubs would do well to consult the General 
Federation Bulletin for November, 1911, for a brief sug- 
gestive outline of next things to be done for fresh air. Some 
of the suggestions may be helpful here: 

Have the health committee secure a practical manual on ventilation, 
like Dr. J. S. Billings's Ventilating and Heating; 

Enforce building laws or secure adequate ones; 

Have lectures and demonstrations by experts or by agents of ventila- 
tion apparatus; 

Consult boards of health, medical societies, or the National Association 
for Study of Tuberculosis; 

Secure and study local or state regulations, and see whether they are 
enforced; if not, why not, and who is responsible; 

Ask city and state boards of health for leaflets; 

Hold meetings and help editors report strikingly; 

Form fresh air leagues among children; 

Hold a conference Math local architects; 

Secure the cooperation of a commercial club, or other groups of business 
men. 

Shaw's School Hygiene gives expert advice about the 
best ventilating systems and their dangers. Fresh air, like 
all other good things, must be watched. Spasmodic visits 
between recesses will test the maximum staleness of air. 
Even when the superintendent fixes the number of times 
windows shall be open, there should be watching from the 
outside to see for sure that some unlovely or anemic 
teacher is not taking away from her children the blessing 
of clean air and all that it means to mind and body. 

The Bubbling Fountain 

A torrent of abuse is being heaped on the common drink- 
ing cup. People who cannot quite grasp the advisability of 
inspection which will keep out of school the children who 

156 



OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN 

have infectious diseases or are exposed to contagion at 
home can understand the danger in the cup which passes, 
germ-laden, from mouth to mouth. 

The bubbUng fountain is usually one of the first demands 
after a survey of sanitary conditions. It may come as a 
result of a campaign for this one purpose. Physicians con- 
demn the cup scientifically and leave the education of 
public opinion to women's clubs. Once the proposition is 
brought squarely before the public, there is little difl[iculty 
in getting everybody to agree that the common cup ought 
to go. In San Rafael the entire town set aside a day for 
the funeral — burning, smashing, breaking — of every drinking 
cup used in public places. 

There are now a few state laws doing away on paper, at 
least, with the common cup; but when unsupplemented by 
provision for drinking fountains, laws are likely to go un- 
noticed. Years afterward you will find the same old cups, 
the same old faucets that little boys can conveniently put 
their mouths around. To secure individual paper cups or 
bubbling fountains eventually requires public money and 
an added appropriation in the budget. But to connect the 
cup with the taxpayers' pockets you have only to show 
how many children are excluded from school, fall behind, or 
miss school work as a result of communicable disease, which 
means not only measles and chicken-pox, but colds, sore 
throats, and grippe — ^practically every ill excepting broken 
bones and over-eating. 

Even when sanitary fountains are installed, their location 
and construction often make them far from beneficial. A 
school survey in Syracuse, for example, discovered a foun- 
tain in an illy ventilated toilet room above a sink which 
caught the drippings of a waste pipe from the floor above. 
What kinds of fountain are installed, and where, must be 

watched. 

157 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

And when you stop to think, you will see what a very 
small portion of the health problem is remedied by doing 
away with the common cup. Your child may use her own 
tumbler to get a drink, come back and sit next to a child 
with tonsilitis. A great deal too much attention has been 
centered on the cup without putting it in its position of 
relative importance. The same amount of energy which 
will get physicians interested, write articles for the press, 
hold mothers' meetings, talk to school people, secure and 
enforce a city ordinance or state law about the drinking 
cup will create the same sentiment and get the same result 
for school nursing and medical inspection which bring 
comprehensive sanitary changes. For no school physician 
is willing to allow children to be unnecessarily exposed to 
contagion. The drinking cup is disappearing in any number 
of places as a result of medical inspection, while, on the 
other hand, people who have struggled most energetically 
for the pure bubbling fountain alone are finding, alas, that 
it is a school "stunt" to get your mouth right down 
on top. 

The laws of hygiene and health which apply to a drinking 
cup apply also to a roller towel, to sanitaries, to desks, 
erasers, and slates. We cannot logically crusade against 
one without crusading against the others. 

Good Light vs. Poor Eyes 

Did you ever know anybody who did not feel a thrill of 
sympathetic pity for a blind person, especially a blind child? 
Spasmodically we have epidemics of agitation about the 
eyesight of school children. Some one will say, and truth- 
fully, that the eyes need as much attention as the teeth, 
or that we must provide free eye glasses for the poor. Yet 
all the time children, millions of them, go on studying in 

158 



OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN 

rooms so dark or so poorly lighted that even strong eyes are 
tried severely. 

Though your own eyes are good guides for judging the 
light in school rooms, there are accepted scientific standards 
about light — the amount, direction, and intensity desirable. 
One square foot of window space should be allowed for 
five of floor space in a room not more than 25 feet wide. 
This is easily measured either in the building plan or by 
personal visits to the schools. The majority of the light 
should come from one side. Consult the school architect, 
and, perhaps by consultation with other architects, outline 
detailed changes for each building, so, when possible, windows 
may be cut to bring enough light and from the proper 
direction. The school architect will be glad to let you 
see the plans for new buildings. If sufficient light and the 
right sort of light requires more money, get the press inter- 
ested, talk to a group of business men and tell the board of 
education you will support their request at budget time. 
Unless adequate means for getting good light are secured 
through official channels, women's clubs might just as well 
go elsewhere with their interests, for no amount of talking 
will accomplish anything unless it leads to a budget change. 

Adequate inspection for eye diseases, testing children 
when they enter school, giving those with weak sight places 
in the front of the room, will supplement proper lighting of 
classrooms. When a child's eyes are very bad a teacher 
can generally find an oculist who will gladly examine him. I 
once saw a little girl in a 1 B grade peering through great 
spectacles at the blackboard. When I asked about her, 
the teacher said that the child, after six months in school, 
was discovered to be totally blind in one eye and losing her 
sight in the other. She was then put under a physician's 
care. But think of those weeks of not understanding, of 
shame for poor work, of dulled appreciation — and how un- 

159 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

necessary ! The epitome of everything known about Hghting 
in schools — the best shape for windows, the direction and 
amount of hght needed — is condensed in Shaw's School 
Hygiene. 

School Lunches 

There is first of all the school lunch which is a business 
proposition, run on a lunch counter basis at moderate prices. 
This is of especial value in high schools where many children 
come from a distance and would otherwise eat cold food 
brought from home. A teacher has said that unhealthful 
lunches are perhaps the greatest cause of poor health and 
poor work among high school children. But as even children 
of 16 and 18 years have not sense enough to eat wholesome 
things if pies and cake and sweet stuff are provided, it is 
often advisable not to have a school lunch counter in charge 
of a money making concern. 

In Newburyport, for example, the Woman's Club runs a 
high school lunch for 400 pupils. The city gives the room, 
and the club furnishes the salary of a woman to do the 
cooking and waiting. The lunch room has always paid for 
supplies and enough over to add any desired improvements. 
Sometimes, after experimentation by a woman's club, 
lunches have been carried on by the board of education, as 
in Louisville, where members of the Alumnae Club of the 
girls' high school demonstrated for four months the value 
of a school lunch. It was then taken over by the school 
commissioners, and now a fine lunch room is being built with 
one member of the club in charge. Mothers' clubs have 
provided lunch rooms in some schools, and in others parent- 
teacher associations. In Boston the school committee put 
in the equipment for lunch rooms in high schools, while the 
New England Diet Kitchen prepared lunches at cost. This 
work has been carried on since 1907 by the Woman's Edu- 

160 




ONE OF SEVEN EXPERIMENTS: NEW YORK SCHOOL LUNCH COMMITTEE 




TABLE D HOTE: HOME AND SCHOOL LEAGUE: PHILADELPHIA 
SHOULD OUTSIDERS PROVE THE VALUE OF SCHOOL FEEDING? 



OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN 

cational and Industrial Union. In Newark the High School 
Alumnse Association maintained a lunch room in the high 
school building, the prices charged just covering expenses. 
Some schools have lunches provided at cost by the girls 
in the domestic science department. One of the most 
unique arrangements exists in Chelsea. The civic com- 
mittee of the Women's Club manages a high school lunch 
counter, where every day a committee of women attends 
personally to the students. It is so arranged that each 
member of the committee serves only once in two weeks. 
The superintendent writes, "By this personal service the 
members of the club come in actual contact with the high 
school pupils in a very helpful way." 

Not as a business proposition, but primarily to enable 
those children who would otherwise buy a penny's worth of 
candy from a push cai't to get something hot and nour- 
ishing at noon time, lunches in elementary schools are 
springing up all over the country. Some are fostered by 
women's clubs or promoted by committees which exist 
solely for that purpose. Though the two or three cents 
which children pay for lunches practically cover the cost 
of food, voluntary contributions are necessary to cover 
the expenses of administration and supervision. In New 
York the School Lunch Committee runs seven lunches 
with menus which vary according to the nationahty of the 
majority of children. Where I had lunch in a ''slum" 
school we were given (for three cents) a big tin of tomato 
soup with vegetables and two large pieces of bread. We 
could also buy for a penny a jelly sandwich or a baked apple, 
a cookie or plate of salad. The food was served by children 
chosen by the teachers to work for their lunches. They 
ladle out soup, put bread on the plates, wash the dishes, 
and clean up the room. The administrative expenses are 
met by the committee. 

161 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

In 1910, when the lunches were started, an investigation 
was made by the department of health's medical inspector 
of 959 children in one school and 1,000 children in another 
school. Of these, 283 were described as suffering from mal- 
nutrition. They were then divided, one group receiving 
lunches and the other going home for lunch for three months. 
They were watched as to weight and school work. A visitor 
was assigned to record home conditions, to note whether 
the mothers were at home all day, whether a good noon 
meal was supplied at home, and whether the children brought 
lunches to school. At the end of this study it was shown 
that the children who were given school lunches gained on 
an average more than the children who went home. No 
one doubts that nourishing food is good for children, and that 
those who otherwise would not have hot lunches are likely 
to gain in weight if they have hot lunches. The School 
Lunch Committee has, however, not yet proved that giving 
hot lunches to children makes a measurable difference in 
their school work, that the children who need hot lunches 
are getting them, and that all the children who are now 
coming to the lunches need to have an extra school activity 
run for their benefit. Until these points are brought out 
the board of education cannot logically ask for a budget 
allowance to take over the work. 

In making its demonstration, the School Lunch Com- 
mittee of the Philadelphia Home and School League, with 
the cooperation of the Psychological Clinic, took physical 
measurements and mental tests of two groups of children, 
one taking dinners and another not taking dinners, and 
proved through lesson averages and conduct averages that 
there is an educational value in giving children enough to 
eat. To get publicity before a budget campaign the Phila- 
delphia Committee is urging other organizations to supply 

money for equipping and running one school apiece. For 

162 



OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN 

$250 a woman's club can give hot lunches to the children 
of one school during the year. A woman, in memory of her 
son, has endowed a settlement with enough to pay for hot 
lunches at one cent each for all the neighborhood children. 
It is a beautiful and practical memorial, and might also be 
made through a school where the dreaded paternalistic and 
pauperizing effect is minimized. 

The criticism is often and justly made that school lunches 
are superficial, are taking the children away from the home, 
and relieving the parents of their duties. One square meal 
a day of nourishing food is better than none; but after all, 
what is the use of giving a child good food at five lunches 
if he is going to live on tea and coffee for breakfast and 
supper and lunch the rest of the week? To meet this argu- 
ment the committee in Philadelphia is cooperating with 
practical housekeeping centers to give lessons in the homes 
of the same children who are being fed at school. A visitor 
points out to mothers the advantages of good food for the 
children, and shows how to prepare food and market eco- 
nomically. Destitute cases are reported to organized 
charities. 

Much that we have learned from experimenting in a 
dozen cities was discovered years ago by the London County 
Council. The Children's Care Committees proved that the 
only efficacious way to remedy so-called malnutrition was 
to find out whether children were suffering from unsuitable 
feeding, want of sleep, or overwork out of school hours. 
"They require, as a rule, much more done for them than 
merely feeding them on school days, and whatever is done 
must be placed, as all sensible people see, on a more scien- 
tific basis than wholesale free feeding can ever supply if 
they are to be helped efficiently and not allowed to remain 
forever on a feeding list." 

When, after a visit to the home, the Committee found 

12 163 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

that a child really needed food at school, the number of 
dinners each child should receive was scheduled, and at 
each meeting of the Conmiittee it was again decided whether 
feeding should be continued. Where milk, rather than 
dinners, was needed, this was also provided. The London 
schools have given up the wholesale feeding of children as 
unscientific and futile. Why should not we in America 
profit by this experience? 

For data about the physical and mental effect of school 
feeding on children, write to the Committee on Tuber- 
culosis, 105 East Twenty-second Street, New York; or The 
Home and School League, Philadelphia. 

Housekeeping by Continuation Schools 

Many new ideas about domestic science which deserve 
the enthusiastic support of women are being tried by 
superintendents. Within the same week three excellent sug- 
gestions came to my notice. The first was a story in 
the Journal of Education called *'The Home School in 
Providence." It told of the school board's experiment in 
teaching housekeeping by applied work after school hours. 
A flat was rented and turned over to the girls in the Tech- 
nical High School to renovate and furnish. Study of de- 
signs, experience in buj^ing, floor painting, and making 
curtains were included in the preliminaries to good house- 
keeping. Afternoon classes for girls in the grammar schools 
were then started, and evening classes for factory girls in 
sewing, cooking, and general housework. 

The girls are shown how to air a bed, how to keep it clean, how to 
tuck in sheets, and how to make a bed for an invaUd. They clean, sweep, 
and dust in the easiest and most practical way. They learn how floors, 
curtains, mops, and brushes should be taken care of. Another lesson 
is in setting the table and serving a meal, either as a hostess or as a wait- 

164 



OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN 

ress. Another group washes all the hnen that is used for a week, from 
five to seven dozen pieces; and another does the ironing. 

» 

A library, social Friday evenings, and direct instruction 
for mothers in the care of babies are part of the extended 
use of this continuation school, which was so immediately 
successful that a similar home making tenement school was 
started for factory girls by the Boston school board. 

The second suggestion came from Trenton, where the 
superintendent says that one of the chief needs of schools 
in crowded districts is a day nursery in charge of school 
nurses. "Over two hundred of our pupils have had to lose 
a great deal of their schooling this year because they were 
kept at home to take care of younger children while their 
mothers went out to work. In many cases the mother, a 
widow, was the only wage earner in the family. These 
buildings might be used also in connection with our do- 
mestic science department for lessons and demonstrations 
in the care of children and in housekeeping." 

From a third city, Marlborough, came the annual report 
telling about the superintendent's plan for practical courses 
in cooking, sewing, basketry, gardening, painting, and music, 
as high school electives to be supplemented by work at home 
under the guidance of mothers. To stimulate this valuable 
home work he urges the adoption of an individual home 
rank card. "This card should be kept by those parents who 
wish to have their children participate in such work. For 
instance, several mothers might agree to study with their 
daughters some definite phase of home management. I am 
sure that one of the women's clubs would arrange a course 
of lectures for such a group. At the end of the season the 
girls could present their records of progress and accom- 
plishments which should receive some recognition in the 
total rank for the year. A certain number of points should 

165 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

be given for excellence in any systematic and continuous 
home work supervised and ranked by the parent cooperating 
with the teacher." 

Would not one or more of these schemes be practical in 
your city? 

School Gardens and Nature Study 

One of the nice things to do for schools is to put growing 
things about for children to watch. In our big cities the 
absence of nature and live things around schools is too often 
taken for granted; in smaller places the artistic and peda- 
gogic value of gardens has been neglected. But now comes 
a group of specialists who have discovered that the garden 
is a source of manifold benefits to children, mentally, morally, 
and phj^sically. There are whole associations simply to 
foster in children the love of grubbing in the earth and of 
raising things. Usually, however, garden work has de- 
veloped as a part of another club's activity. For example, 
the Women's Civic League in Kalamazoo has a special 
committee to cooperate with teachers in promoting school 
and home gardening by selling each year over 15,000 packets 
of seeds. To stimulate children's patience while things 
grow, prizes of money and bulbs are offered for the best 
products raised either in the gardens at home or in those 
connected with the school. The Woman's Club in Dubuque 
has for the past ten years been distributing packets of 
seeds, providing window boxes, giving flower and vegetable 
shows in the schools, and offering cash prizes for the best 
exhibits brought by children. Like so many other school 
activities, when proved of value, school gardens have often 
developed under the board of education, as in Newark, 
where the first school garden was run for a year by the 
Woman's Club, then taken over. 

The prime necessity for garden work is, of course, land. 

166 



OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN 

Any one may give or loan land. Vacant lots are more 
pleasant to look at and more salable with a crop of healthy 
vegetables and healthy children working over them. Real 
estate companies have seen the business advantage of having 
lots used for this purpose. The initial expense of preparing 
the ground is quite small, because the children are willing 
laborers. Seeds are seciu-ed from plant guilds, or are some- 
times given by merchants. Sometimes a state or local 
grange will supply enough to fill each child's garden. Once 
started, the garden needs only occasional supervision by a 
teacher and the loving care of the children for ''my things." 
School gardens are especially desirable as a laboratory 
method of teaching agriculture. With increasing emphasis 
by everybody on "back to the farm," the appeal of scien- 
tific and intensive farming should be made to the boys 
when young. The United States department of agriculture 
sees the advantages of these early beginnings, and is offer- 
ing to help smaller communities with their agricultural 
work in schools. An interesting account in a recent issue 
of the Survey tells of the intensive farming done by school 
children in Oregon. County contests in raising anything, 
from pigs to pop-corn, have stimulated young farmers 
throughout the state. This campaign grew out of a pop-corn 
collection taken six years ago in a school located in the 
heart of a rich farming country. The young county school 
superintendent, who is now the state superintendent, was 
thus led to try the experiment which has resulted in 5,000 
children growing their own corn, melons, and vegetables. 
"Few boys in Yamhill County to-day have to send to stores 
to buy pop-corn, or are tempted to enter their neighbor's 
melon patches at night," says Calvin C. Thomason, field 
manager for the industrial contests, "for almost all of them 
grow their own, and have much left for market after sup- 
plying their own homes." 

167 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

The value of outdoor work in gardens for delicate children 
or those inclined to have tuberculosis is patent. Many a 
little cripple is enjoying to the full the moderate exercise 
and opportunity to do things in the sunshine. Through the 
delicate children school gardens are connected with phy- 
sicians. 

Any one who is interested can locate on a map all schools 
and the gardens they should have; can show on a map 
where vacant lots would be of service as gardens; can con- 
vince real estate dealers that giving lots for gardens is a 
practical move; interest business men in this work; get 
ministers to set aside a Sunday as School Garden Sunday, 
just before budget time; ask the local grange or state 
bureau of agriculture to furnish seeds; emphasize con- 
stantly that the city must ultimately do the work, and that 
everybody must help on the budget fight; get a taxpayers' 
association to recommend the necessary appropriation, or 
ask the park commissioner if there is not some extra space 
for children to grow flowers in. 

In spite of the crowded conditions about most of the 
schools in the city of New York, half of those already built, 
so says the School Garden Association, have some grounds, 
even if only a little plot in a playground, on which school 
gardens might be installed. Consequently strenuous effort 
is being made each year to get a budget appropriation which 
will enable the board of education to do this work as it 
should be done, and to establish a department of nature 
study and school gardens. 

Parents in some cities have shown interest in school 
grounds by giving trees and shrubbery, fountains, walks, 
and pavilions. Arbor Day is the logical time to interest, 
by some appropriate ceremony, both parents and children 
in the school grounds. Arbor Day in the Pittsburg schools 
started with the Civic Club, which took the initiative by 

168 



OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN 

giving talks to the children. To encourage this celebration 
the Woman's Club in Dubuque presents vines, shrubs, and 
trees to the schools. The planting becomes a ceremony and 
makes the children feel partial responsibility for the welfare 
of these growing things and for the beauty of their school 
surroundings. Newspapers in a third city employed a 
landscape gardener to plan the beautification of school 
grounds by using the native flora. The children them- 
selves, hundreds of them, are voluntarily furnishing plants 
to carry on this scheme. 

In big cities scores of "slum" children and many mod- 
erately well-off children never see parks from one year's 
end to another, and their only knowledge of growing things 
often comes through the outside agencies which collect and 
distribute from rich people's conservatories or dinner tables 
the extra flowers that are full of wonderful beauty for these 
children. The National Plant, Flower, and Fruit Guild, 
with headquarters at 70 Fifth Avenue, New York, is trying 
to furnish natm-e material to the schools that most need it — 
plants, bulbs, and seeds for kindergartens and primary 
grades. Once or twice a year the Guild combines with 
other committees interested in nature work for a mammoth 
show in a public school. Parents and children from other 
schools come to see the flowers, and thousands of eyes are 
brightened by this little glimpse of lilies and roses. Could 
plant and flower giving in your city be systematized so 
that no school room would be without some growing thing? 
Cut flowers from greenhouses, extra flowers from private 
hothouses, soil, window boxes, pretty jars to grow plants 
in — there are endless things to give; and for the out-of- 
doors gardens, land, implements, and seeds. 

Public gardens and parks are storehouses of delight for 
the children. Since 1905 the New York Botanical Gardens 
have been giving to groups of school children lectures which 

169 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

are correlated with nature study in the school. Owing to 
the great distance of the gardens from most of the schools 
only a limited number of children can take advantage of 
the talks about seaweeds, mushrooms, hemlock forests, 
and fern groves, or of walks in small groups along the 
pretty paths. It has been seriously argued that some ar- 
rangement should be made with the traction companies 
whereby children may be given a free ride to the gardens 
during non-rush hours as part of their school work. In 
smaller cities all schools may profit by park greenhouses 
and gardens. ^ ery soon the progressiveness of an institu- 
tion of this kind will be measured by the extent of its school 
cooperation and the value put on its work with children. 

Are there enough school gardens for all in your city? Is 
some child without a growing flower in his school room? 

Fresh Air Summer Work 

Have you any idea how many cliiklren of school age do not leave town 
for the whole summer? 

For how many children are plaj'ground and recreational faciUties pro- 
vided by the city or outsiders? 

What do the rest of the children do in the city during the three months' 
vacation? 

Those of us who leave town with our children as soon as 
school is finished and find mountain or shore resorts just as 
crowded each year, do not realize what a small percentage 
we are. It has been estimated (p. 278) that the families 
which cannot afford to send their children to high school 
cannot afford to leave town, and that the number of vaca- 
tioners will nowhere exceed the high school register — about 
6% in New York. 

Through successful vacation schools and supervised play- 
grounds we have learned that normally healthy chikh'en can 

170 



OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN 

be happy and well in the city during hot weather. I was 
astonished when first told that it was no kindness to take 
the average city child away for the whole summer, but I 
believe it now, after watching the thrilling and adventure- 
satisfying life in park and street. Hand organs with groups 
of little girls dancing beside them, games, fights, moving' 
picture shows, recreation piers, ice cream carts — what more 
does a child want? 

The problem for fresh air workers is rather to give short 
vacations to many, according to the urgency of their need, 
than to keep a few in the country for three months. And 
the many can be reached easily through the schools. Every 
spring teachers in the crowded sections of New York are 
asked by numerous agencies, like the Association for Im- 
proving the Condition of the Poor or the Tribune Fresh Air 
Fund, to make out lists of children who would profit by a 
vacation. Visitors are sent to the homes to make sure that 
the children's families cannot afford to give them the 
outing. Then during the hot days the children, thousands 
of them, are taken to the sea shore or country for a week, or 
perhaps only a day, of digging in the sand and chasing waves. 
But the settlement camps, and even the great houses at Sea 
Breeze and Chappaqua, where a thousand people a day 
can be comfortably stowed away for a noon dinner, only 
accommodate three per cent of the mothers and chil- 
dren who would be equally benefited by an occasional 
outing. 

What is now most necessary to make all children comfort- 
able in summer is the fundamental work of securing enough 
park and play space, having streets kept extra clean for the 
children, collecting garbage frequently to keep the air pure, 
teaching mothers how to prepare cooling food, opening 
enough public baths, and compelling space for light and air 
in tenements. Otherwise, children come from their joyful 

171 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

outings in the country only to lose vitality and strength in 
dirty streets and stuffy homes. 

The time is surely coming when school-all-the-year-round 
will solve many of oiu" summer problems, when teaching 
and play will be so attractive that trips to the sea shore will 
not be necessary life-saving for the city's children. For 
results of experiments, write to the city superintendents 
of Cleveland, and Newark, New Jersey. 

What happens to the teachers in our big cities during the 
summer . 

How many of them get the change and recreation and 
fresh air they need? 

Do their salaries permit vacations at the sea shore or in 
the country? 

Teachers' Visits or Visiting Teachers 

This much-mooted controversy, to settle which thousands 
of dollars a year are being spent annually by outside agencies 
and schools, offers women a particularly good opportunity 
for efficient cooperation. Shall the city pay for one, two, 
or ten visiting teachers when it has employees supposed to 
be doing that work? Wliat does the visiting teacher do 
that cannot be done by the combined force of efficient nm-se, 
attendance officer, relief visitor, hospital physician, and 
grade teacher? 

Money voting powers are saying to the outside agencies 
who are exploiting the visiting teachers, *'You can show 
us." The Public Education Association in New York has 
been administering for several years a fund which now sup- 
ports seven home and school visitors. For two years they 
backed the board of education's request for a budget ap- 
propriation to have visiting teachers in the school system; 
but in 1911 they withdrew this request, hoping that the 
findings of the school inquiry would show where efficiency 

173 



OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN 

within the system would obviate the need for the visiting 
teacher. 

The desirabiHty of considering each child as an individual 
with peculiar needs that somebody should pay attention to 
is unquestioned, and good people have grasped at the 
visiting teacher as the easiest way of bringing it to pass. 
Settlements, parents' associations, women's clubs, have all 
welcomed the visiting teacher, but they have not yet settled 
the controversy. 

Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that the average 
teacher has 35 children in her class, and that one-third of 
them are in such a condition, physically, mentally, or 
morally that patently they need somebody's attention. 
Let us say that one-fourth of those 12 need physical care 
by the school nurse, one-fourth need the care of a truant 
officer, and one-half need extra care in their lessons and 
sympathetic home visiting. Thus each grade teacher will 
have six children on her visiting list. They do not require 
daily or weekly calls at their homes during six months, for 
after the first few visits matters may have completely ad- 
justed themselves, though perhaps new children needing 
special attention will take the place of cases already straight- 
ened out. 

The indirect argument behind the visiting teacher is 
this: We have school nurses, but not enough, nor do they 
do the work they are supposed to do; we have attend- 
ance officers, but either recognizedly inefficient ones who 
do not catch the truants or unskilled ones who cannot 
read the complicated conditions back of truancy and juvenile 
delinquency; we have grade teachers who have six months 
of intimate contact with their children, but who are too 
burdened with teaching from nine to three, with clerical re- 
porting and outside matters, to visit the homes of the chil- 
dren. Instead of getting enough school nurses, instead of 

173 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

making attendance officers efficient, instead of releasing 
teachers from clerical work to do home visiting, let us pay 
for an extra person, a visiting teacher, to act as go-between 
for home and school, to put the child in touch with agencies 
which will meet his particular needs. 

When the item of $25,000 for visiting teachers was cut 
out of the New York budget, the city superintendent gave 
a general order that high school teachers should do the visit- 
ing themselves. It met with a howl. Some argued that home 
visiting would expose teachers to health dangers, others 
that it would consume all their leisure time. But for the 
most part, when teachers tried it, they realized the potential 
benefits to themselves and their work from this individual 
knowledge of difficult children's home situations. And it 
did not mean visiting all 35 children every day, which is 
the usual picture people get when you suggest that teachers 
visit in the homes. 

I spent one afternoon with a visiting teacher in the slums 

of New York. She found out the real age of one child who 

had applied for working papers; sent another to a pre- 

ventatorium for tuberculosis; advised a mother to take 

her child to a clinic, etc. Not one thing did she do which 

was not the logical duty of one of the six large relief agencies 

or of the city's health department. To each of the squalid 

tenements she had been sent at a school teacher's suggestion. 

Is it not a fair measure of a teacher's estimate of charitable 

agencies that not one of these families needing relief was 

referred directly to a relief agency? If the visiting teacher 

were labeled ''I am here because you are inefficient," she 

might serve as the great moral and practical lesson to schools 

and outside agencies, which she is — underneath. Teachers, 

nurses, and outsiders cordially extend to her the difficult 

problems in their own fields. Naturally, they indorse the 

visiting teacher; naturally, she has even more than she can 

174 



OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN 

do. She is a living appeal for problems to settle; and because 
problems are plentiful, she is apparently the only solution. 
Meanwhile, city councils are saying, ^' Prove it." 

It is in this situation that women outside schools can 
help. They are in touch with relief agencies, and can measure 
efficiency there. They are interested in hospitals, probation 
associations, settlements; they work with groups of parents, 
and they know the school nurses and grade teachers. They 
have within their grasp the tests for efficiency of each, and 
can prove or disprove the need for the visiting teacher, 
not by putting one in the school and showing how much 
she has to do, but by studying carefully what each school 
employee and outside agency fails to do for the very children 
who are supposed to need a visiting teacher. 

The Social Efficiency of Teachers 

In the early days of western towns teachers were the 
most important people socially. The positions to-day of a 
public school teacher in Philadelphia and in a small middle 
west city are radically different. With the growth, or rather 
rediscovery, of parent interest in schools has come the re- 
discovery in large cities that the teacher is human and must 
be socially recognized. Women's clubs, churches, mothers' 
clubs, with their strong school interests, have realized that 
the teacher is the educational authority, the potent factor 
in child training. 

Socially there are many ways in which public school 
teachers can be brought more closely in touch with outside 
men and women. Does yoiu* church hold a reception for 
teachers? Does your club put aside a teachers' day? Do 
the "culture clubs," literary, musical, dramatic, welcome 
teachers for membership? Have you considered that the 
difficulties experienced by your parent-teacher associations 

175 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

may come because you are not interested in teachers as 
social beings? Of course, it is narrowing that teachers ex- 
press themselves socially in associations that are almost 
unions. But the bond of sympathy is just as natural as 
that which welds together members of any trade. There 
are hundreds of teachers working in localities where no one 
else is their equal in mental training. One of the most 
beautiful things done by Miss Julia Richman, who, as dis- 
trict superintendent, did so much in one of the poorest 
districts of New York, was the maintaining of a '' teachers' 
house," a home on the same principle as a settlement, but 
for public school teachers instead of social workers. 

Until the relative value of public school teacher, settle- 
ment worker, charity visitor, and society girl is clearly 
felt the fundamental barriers between home and school will 
remain largely social. 



VIII 

HOW WOMEN ORGANIZE TO HELP SCHOOLS 

The General Federation of Women's Clubs 

ITS educational committee holds relatively the same 
position to local clubs that the United States bureau 
of education holds to local superintendents in collecting 
information and data for reports, stimulating local work 
along definite lines, and sending out frequent suggestions. 
In these three ways its opportunity is limitless; but just 
because the field is so immense and lapses in club mechanism 
do occur, proportionately little has been accomplished. 
The United States commissioner of education has un- 
doubtedly an advantage over the General Federation's 
chairman of education, because he knows just who each 
superintendent is, what his record shows in annual reports, 
and that he is likely to stay in office for some time. Com- 
missioner Claxton can put his official finger on Walla 
Walla, Peoria, or Philadelphia with equal ease, and be sure 
that they are all going to be interested in suggestions about 
improved methods of reporting, new ways of teaching geog- 
raphy, or better adjustable desks. The Federation chairman 
serving for only one or two years does not know every local 
club chairman of education, nor can she, without second 
sight, learn of each one's particular field or personal hobby 
in time to give and get suggestions before a new chairman 
comes in with a change of policy. 

177 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

The General Federation has three means for distribut- 
ing information and suggestions to its 800,000 women — 
through the biennial meeting and report, through state 
and local chairmen of education, and through general 
publicity, newspapers, club bulletins, and special articles. 
The biennial report goes to practically every city with its 
message of what has been done, but generally without sug- 
gestion as to what might be accomplished before the next 
meeting. It is purchased often by a club; but when there 
is no club house, it is not available for easy reference by 
members who are not officers. 

The educational platform adopted at the St. Paul bien- 
nial, ''That all children in the United States shall have equal 
educational opportunity," is divided into planks of more 
or less definite things to be worked for — strong and well- 
enforced child labor and compulsory education laws in every 
state; sufficient well equipped and cared-for school houses 
in every community; properly trained and paid teach- 
ing force; expert paid supervision of all school work; 
training for the hand and moral instruction in all public 
schools. For the two years which ended in 1910 the last 
item was emphasized, and in 439 towns club women re- 
ported having assisted directly in introducing industrial 
activities, besides having made studies and reports on the 
same subject. 

In the last biennial report one-third of the precious four 
pages of the educational committee's report for 1910 is 
given to the discussion of the ''Rhodes scholar," one in- 
dividual of the 20,000,000 children that the committee 
wants to help. The brief summary of work done by clubs 
and the tables showing where it was for medical inspection, 
for decorations, or for libraries, make one proud of the 
Federation, proud of the scope and possibilities of clubs' 
helpfulness for schools. But we are not told definitely 

178 




X\SING SCHOOL GROUND'^^: WALTHAM 




IN THE MIDDLE OF NEW ORLEANS 




STORY HOUR FOR PROBATIONERS: ATLANTA 
WOMEN ARE PROMOTING PLAY 



HOW WOMEN ORGANIZE 

what remains to be done, or how to do it. Next steps and 
a next two years' program are not suggested, for all this de- 
pends on the new national chairman with a new program, 
a new slogan, a new policy. Should the biennial recapitu- 
late, or plan ahead? Should a definite goal be set for two 
years hence and reports be made in the light of what re- 
mains to be done? Why not supplement rivalry in reporting 
the amount and character of work done with rivalry in 
reporting constructive, practical suggestions for future work? 

Because state chairmen change every two years and, 
therefore, the headquarters of committees move from city 
to city, a central bureau enables the General Federation to 
collect from clubs, individuals, magazines, and newspapers 
all the available information that will be of help to indi- 
vidual clubs or workers. As far as funds permit, outlines for 
meetings, programs, and bibliographies are suggested to 
club leaders. The chief work of the bureau has been the 
club directory, in making which the managers say they are 
much hindered and delayed by women's lack of promptness, 
accuracy, and common sense in answering blanks. 

Mrs. Mary I. Wood, head of the bureau, realizes fully 
the opportunities that lie before such a central clearing 
house for club information. The bureau has to-day as 
large a scope and more immediate opportunity to benefit 
schools than has the Russell Sage Foundation. It can be 
the directing force in passing on the best ideas of school 
progress through the mechanism of club organization to 
every city and county in the United States. Yet, it has 
practically no money for an office staff, for postage, or for 
the printing or distributing of uniform schedules necessary 
in measuring club work. Without any money a great deal 
is being accomplished, and the bureau deserves the hearty 
support of all club women. If local clubs will go half way 
in supplying information quickly, systematically, and 

13 179 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

definitely, the bureau can be even more helpful, until it 
receives the endowment which it will use so advantageously. 

The official organ of twelve state federations of women's 
clubs, the General Federation Bulletin, aims to make available 
to 800,000 federated women notes from state work, reports 
of national committees and departments, and ideas of 
general interest. From time to time the educational de- 
partment tells of its programs, and gives suggestions through 
the Bulletin. Thus chairmen have a chance to make known 
to everybody interested the sources for information, at 
least. One chairman was asked by a recently appointed 
local chairman, "Will you please plan out the work for me 
and tell me where I can get full information as to what 
other clubs have done?" To this the department chairman 
answered, ''Have you not been reading your Bulletin?" and 
referred to a series of articles running for over a year on this 
subject. 

The Bulletin as an official organ has great opportunities 
for educational leadership. It is already interesting reading 
even for the non-club woman. It makes one realize that a 
great deal of excellent work is being done by women. It 
is sincere and straightforward. But until local clubs realize 
the mutual benefit which comes from keeping the central 
department chairman informed about their work in order 
that they in turn may draw on the experience of others, the 
Bulletin cannot be as useful as it might be, however inter- 
esting and worth while. There is a way of reporting plain, 
ordinary club news so that it stimulates and describes next 
steps which may be taken by any club. 

The National Congress of Mothers 

Nation-wide in cities and towns mothers are organizing 
for the study of child welfare and for intelligent cooperation 

180 



HOW WOMEN ORGANIZE 

between home, school, and city. The program adopted at 
the second international congress shows what the organiza- 
tion aims to secm-e for schools: the training of children in 
the privileges of citizenship; legislation to abolish the com- 
mon cup; best preparation for non-college education; nor- 
mal, domestic, and moral training in curriculum; careful 
selection of janitors; definite methods for cleaning and 
ventilation; medical inspection; special classes for backward 
children; and probation for wayward children under sixteen 
through boards of education. These are definite tasks 
that mothers can take up at once. These are things that 
every mother wants, that every city should welcome. 

The official organ of the Congress is the monthly Child 
Welfare Magazine, whose primary purpose is to ''carry a 
message of special value to all who see the possibilities of a 
little child, and who would give to each one the oppor- 
tunity to develop his highest nature." Here are printed 
papers, for example, about clean school houses, about 
school housekeeping and its relation to the health of the 
normal child. In each month's issue state news is given by 
the press chairman, with a list of loan papers available 
from headquarters. There is enthusiasm, earnestness of 
purpose, idealism, and much sentiment of a good kind in 
the little magazine. 

Going to individual homes, to mothers longing for in- 
struction and suggestions, it undoubtedly brings encour- 
agement and advice, stimulates and uplifts. But for the 
organized circle in a city it falls short of doing all this. 
It is not enough "ahead of the game." It leaves suggestions 
to be culled only by those who already know how to find 
them in papers and reports. It does not lead or tell how 
"I can do it," or how "my club can get clean school houses." 
Items like this are interesting, "The parent-teacher associa- 
tion has made visible growth this year both in interest and 

181 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

in numbers," but not half so helpful or satisfactory as, "We 
have now in contemplation two entertainments, proceeds 
of which will be used to provide our school building with a 
vacuum cleaner." The latter makes you think at once, 
"Does our school need a vacuum cleaner?" When one club 
reports the method it used to get something done, any other 
club can use this method. Half the popularity and value 
of the woman's magazines is due to the satisfactory way in 
which they tell me how to decorate my house, make over 
my clothes, and earn my pin-money. Club organs do not 
seem to have learned the secret of answering unasked ques- 
tions before they formulate themselves, or of being just a 
little ahead, a guiding light, a leading hand. It is per- 
fectly possible to use club statistics and reports for the pur- 
pose of showing what remains to be done and of suggesting 
methods which will bring the desired result. 

Why should not monthly club magazines outline next steps 
along each line; show how far each club has or has not 
followed last month's outline about inspecting sanitary 
conditions, for instance, and give further suggestions from 
its experience? Why not classify state reports under 
topics, so that the best which was done last month in all 
states and all cities about getting clean school houses will 
be available in compact form? 

With the growth in numbers and efficiency of local groups 
of mothers the National Congress has as large an oppor- 
tunity for influencing schools as any organization can well 
handle. Because it reaches rich and poor, cultured and 
self-made alike, it needs informed leaders to hold it together, 
and constant stimulation from headquarters for local groups. 

The Association of Collegiate Alumnce 

How much better off are communities for the presence 
of women with college training? Measured by her oppor- 

182 



HOW WOMEN ORGANIZE 

tunity, how does the college woman stand? An occasional 
piece of work like the Boston sanitary survey shows what 
can be done by college women. The trouble is, of course, 
that most of these women, when they are not teaching, are 
interested in many other problems, civic and philanthropic. 
But as long as there is an association with committees and 
conventions there is an opportunity for college women to 
band together for work, or at least to talk about school 
questions and add their resolutions to the demand of the 
board of education for budget increases. 

Two interesting studies have been made by the New York 
branch, one of the recreational, playground, and summer 
school facilities offered to children by the city and all private 
agencies; the other of parent-teacher associations. 

There are many questions that college women particularly 
ought to help answer, as individual workers, as committees 
of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae and the Southern 
Association of College Women, or through an educational 
association outside the school: 

Is it true that college entrance requirements are forcing unsuitable 

curricula on high and elementary schools? 
What happens to the majority of high school students who do not go 

to college? 
Why do so many students leave high school without finishing the 

course? 
Are they fitted for the trades or business they enter? 
Is the normal school getting the right kind of material? 
What tests should be given for teachers' efficiency? 
Would a school survey help the city see its school needs? 
How can coUege women be made to realize the opportunities for service 

as school commissioners or local school board members? 

School Patrons of the National Education Association 

The Department of School Patrons aims to coordinate for 
school work all the women's clubs in each state by means 

183 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

of a joint committee, one member of the Association of 
Collep;iate Alumnae, one member of the General Federation 
of Women's Clubs, one of the Council of Jewish Women, 
one of the National Congress of Mothers, one of the Southern 
Association of College Women, and one member at large. 
The reason for this giouping together of women is, of course, 
to avoid duplication and to concentrate attention on one 
or two salient points which need everybody's interest before 
they can be carried. Some states have not seen the ad- 
vantages of coordination, and in other states it has taken 
two or three years for the joint committees to get in running 
order. 

The Department of School Patrons aims to be ''con- 
tinuous in our attention to educational matters through 
permanent organizations and committees." It endeavors 
to avoid the dangers of "rotating" chairmen by making 
its officers as nearly permanent as possible, and by developing 
a program of cooperation which shall be steady and con- 
tinuous because it is based on school needs, which do not 
change as often as do club officers. 

The joint committee in each state is supposed to be the 
clearing house for women's educational work, always ready 
to give suggestions or help to both school people and out- 
siders. How nearly this ideal has been reached as yet it 
is hard to say. The president issues a yearly folder telling 
what has been done by each state, though it is, of course, 
difficult to locate credit with any one organization when many 
are working together. At the regular National Education 
Association meeting topics concerning the relation of schools 
and outsiders are discussed by the department. In 1912 
the addresses were on "Citizen Cooperation" and "Civic 
and Social Center Development." 

Just to get some idea of what a joint committee repre- 
sents, consider the figures for the Michigan branch. There 

1S4 



HOW WOMEN ORGANIZE 

are 225 federated clubs, well distributed geographically, in- 
cluding in all 1,700 women, two branches of the Association 
of Collegiate Alumnae enrolling about 200 women, and one 
club of Jewish women located at Detroit, with a member- 
ship of 500. Through the member at large the Michigan 
State Grange, with all its local branches, is enlisted. 

Some joint committees start state-wide work through 
little bulletins of suggestions. The Georgia committee, for 
example, sent this letter to women's clubs and distributed 
it throughout the state university: 

The Georgia Joint Committee appointed to unify the educational work 
of the women of the state requests your cooperation 

1. In securing the passage of bills by the Georgia legislature providing for : 

Compulsory school attendance 

The reorganization of the state board of education so as to pro- 
vide for a partially professional board 

The changing of the office of state school commissioner to that 
of state superintendent, with increased salary and an in- 
creased force of assistants 

Some better method than any yet devised for prompt payment 
of teachers 

The making of the coimty the dominant unit of school ad- 
ministration 

The necessary appropriation to operate the State Normal School 
at Valdosta already legally estabhshed but not yet financed 

2. In promulgating public opinion that wiU demand 

Medical inspection and better sanitary conditions in schools 

The introduction and extension of manual training and do- 
mestic science in schools 

The opening of schools for mothers for the prevention of infant 
mortality 

The creation of a national department of health 

The establishment of playgrounds 

The establishment of juvenile courts 

The legislative section of this program was adopted after 
conference with the state school commissioner and the state 
supervisor of rural schools. 

185 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

It is noticeable that the most efifective work has been 
done by joint coniniittees in close cooperation with state 
and county school officials. The chairman in Oregon writes: 

We hold conferences with superintendent of state and county to get 
at the vital needs in an iutellii!;ent way. The su[Hn-intendent has been 
most helpful, and has printed questionnaires which we have circulated 
through our respective organizations and also through the state and 
local granges. We are attempting only feasible things, and thus we 
require little outlay, else at this earl>- stage of oiu- work we would meet 
with httle cooperation. Our work this season (spring, 1911) has been 
in cooperation with the state officials and the grange to urge attendance 
at the annual school election. In the country we suggest a basket lunch- 
eon and social features. We find from letters that our suggestions — for 
they are only suggestions — are most cordially received, and that often 
the improvements have been gladly carried out. 

Other suggestions made in Oregon relate to medical in- 
spection, parent-teacher associations, school luncheons, and 
rural school conditions. The joint committee asks each 
local affiliated club to appoint a ''school patron" who shall 
be responsible for giving school information to each com- 
munity. And all the patrons received this letter: 

Will you not take up for the good of the children the questions out- 
lined in the inclosed circular as a personal matter? Urge all taxpayers, 
men and women, to vote on scluml matters, ami urge every one, whether 
a taxpayer or not, to atteml this annual school meeting in order to observe 
the sanitary conditions and to encourage the school directors in making 
improvements. 

The inclosure mentioned is from the state superintendent, 
who writes, "INIay I not ask for your cooperation to the 
extent of giving a part of one day in the year to the con- 
sideration of public school questions." He tells of the 
plans for a picnic festival on this day and suggests a careful 

survey of school grounds and buildings. ''Some of our school 

ISO 



HOW WOMEN ORGANIZE 

buildings are very unsanitary, and our schools will not be 
what they should be until we have the united support of 
all our school patrons." 
The program for the day reads: 

1. Inspection of grounds 

Size, condition, freedom from stumps, rubbish, etc. 
Water 

If well, when was it cleaned? condition of pump, drainage of 
grounds 

If no well, have you an inclosed jar or tank with faucet? 
Outhouses 

Are they sanitary? 
Are the school grounds fenced? Do they need fencing? 

2. Inspection of houses 

Floor: When cleaned? 

Walls: Do they need painting or cleaning? 

Heating: Location of stove; it should not be in center of room. 

Is there a jacket on stove? 
Wood supply 
Ventilating: Are there window boards? 

3. 12 o'clock — Lunch 

4. L30 p. M. Discussion of how the things inspected may be unproved 

See if some definite action can't be taken to-day 

The ultimate success of the joint conunittees will require 
machinery for putting the chairman in each state auto- 
matically in touch with all the local work. It will also de- 
mand funds with which to send out constant suggestions, 
questionnaires, and reports on school subjects. Thus each 
local club in any of the five organizations will be connected 
with the whole mechanism of state-wide work. Even without 
funds much has been done through generous giving of time 
by public-spirited women. When schoolmen in other states 
follow the example of Oregon's ofiicials, and, instead of 
merely tolerating, welcome and guide this joint club ac- 
tivity, the school patrons will be ten times more valuable 
to their communities. 

187 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

A Legislative Campaign by Women 

A story follows of how 3,000 women in Michigan, under 
the joint committee of the Department of School Patrons, 
thought, talked, and wrote intelligently and effectively about 
needed school laws. Even if the result of one winter's 
campaign was not as great as the committee hoped, the 
force of public opinion roused by this concerted work for 
school laws is beyond estimation. 

Needed school laws have occupied the whole attention of the com- 
mittee. There was already at work in the state, at the time of its or- 
ganization, a schoolmasters' committee instituted by the city school 
superintendents and supported by the State Teachers' Association for 
the furtherance of the same interest. And a systematic cooperation was 
entered into. Still further, the state grange was inspired by the woman's 
committee to create an educational conference cormnittee, to take account 
of proposed measures of special interest in the rural schools, and to ac- 
quaint rural members of the legislature with the desires of the better 
class of school patrons in the cities. This step promises to be fraught 
with permanent benefits. 

As the biennial session approached, a definite program of three measures 
was announced, though it was understood that others might seek the 
support of the women's organizations. These were (1) a new plan for 
the distribution of the school fund accruing from the railroad tax; (2) a 
systematized plan for the adoption of textbooks, and (3) a bill to give 
commission school boards to the cities and towns of the state. Although 
all the energies, saving those of the agricultural element, centered upon 
the third, there was httle hope that any but the first could be passed 
at the first trial. And this proved to be the case. Nevertheless, the idea 
of commission school government made surprising progress throughout 
the state, and would presumably have passed one house of the legislature 
had it not been discovered at the last moment that it threatened to jeop- 
ardize the property held by two existing school boards, whereupon its 
champions willingly postponed it till adequate revision could be made. 

Still further, the women's organizations emerged from their cam- 
paign with two measures distinctly enacted by their efforts, both very 
creditable, though less ambitious than the scheduled program. These 
were (1) an act to assist indigent parents in keeping their children in 

188 



HOW WOMEN ORGANIZE 

school, and (2) an act prohibiting fraternities in the public high schools. 
The former was prepared at the instance of the state federation of clubs, 
and was pushed through all of its stages by the presence of the legislative 
committee of that body at the state capital. In the case of the second, 
a private appeal was made to the women's organizations to turn their 
attention to a measure that had passed the lower house, but had been 
pigeonholed by the senate committee after being jBrst side-tracked. 
Strenuous efforts availed to get the bill favorably reported. And, finally, 
the governor's signature was secured by a timely effort and preconcerted 
appeal made in short order by a series of committee correspondence that 
had sprung up among the women's organizations. 

We consider that the capacity of women, especially those that are 
school patrons, for assisting school legislation, has been thoroughly 
demonstrated by the organized women of Michigan. Two measures have 
been passed by their influence against such obstacles as indifference in 
the one case, and an opposition organized by a social society element in 
the legislature, and supplemented by the governor's disapproval of 
paternalism, in the other. Some women have brought to the chairman- 
ship of their several committees cleverness, disinterestedness, and stead- 
fastness of purpose much beyond what the sex has ever received credit 
for. The most discouraging feature of the work has been the incapaci- 
tating of active women teachers for expressing any opinions on any sub- 
ject relating to school government, school supplies, etc., by the fear of 
losing their positions. Financially, the women could not have undertaken 
the system of interviews and correspondence that they carried out had 
they not been abundantly provided with printed matter by the school- 
masters' committee, whose efforts they were supplementing. 

A Permanent School Extension Committee 

How to establish progressive school activities; 
How to prove their value; 

How to get the board of education to take them up; 
How to concentrate the efforts of women's clubs; 
How to start and pass along "good things" — 

the Chicago Permanent School Extension Committee will 
tell you. It used to be the Vacation School and Playground 
Committee, with representatives from 69 women's clubs in 
the city and its suburbs. But when that work was turned 

.189 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

over to the school board the representatives organized with 
a program for the ''larger use of the public school plant" 
under five standing committees — story-telling, playgrounds, 
civics, milk distribution, and school centers. 

The more successful and better organized the work done 
by the committee, the sooner it receives public support or 
private endowment. The open air schools, which were 
carried on in cooperation with the Chicago Tuberculosis 
Institute and the board of education, have been taken out 
of the committee's hands by the Elizabeth McCormick 
Memorial Fund. At the request of Superintendent Young, 
the committee has added penny lunches to its other ac- 
tivities. "Our hope is that when this is on a successful 
working basis it, too, will be assumed by a larger and better- 
fitted financial body." 

What schools can accomplish as social centers has been 
demonstrated in the John Hamline School, which was opened 
as a neighborhood house in 1905. Its widening, broadening, 
and increasing influence shows that nothing a settlement 
does need be omitted in socialized school work. The public 
is kept aware of the fact that the Hamline School is only 
a demonstration, but that any club or group of citizens 
wanting active social center work has a model to follow 
close at home, and an agency to refer to for data and 
suggestions. 

The Permanent School Extension Committee is acting 
as an executive coromittee on schools for all the club women 
of Chicago. Superintendent, principals, and teachers know 
exactly where to appeal when the cooperation of women 
is needed. Individual club members know exactly where 
to get work to do or work done. All danger of duplication 
and contradictory effort is avoided, and women's energy 
is concentrated and efficiently directed on four or five 
important questions. Such a committee is advisable in any 

190 



HOW WOMEN ORGANIZE 

city where there are two or more women's clubs. It keeps 
smaller, less active clubs from feeling futile and out of 
touch with schools, and it makes cooperation more valuable 
from the school officials' viewpoint. For interesting reports, 
write Mrs. H. W. Austin, 217 Lake Street, Chicago. 

A Civic Club that Made School History 

The Civic Club of Allegheny County, an organiza- 
tion whose board of directors includes both men and 
women, has published a report entitled Fifteen Years of 
Civic History. The record of school reforms initiated and 
of campaigns to arouse public opinion is one to be proud 
of, and is summarized here as an illustration of what women 
in a mixed club can do even when aided by men. 

To the public schools the Civic Club has been an un- 
swerving friend. In 1897 it established children's leagues 
of good citizenship in six schools, but because teachers did 
not cooperate this work was not a success. In 1896 the first 
summer school playground was opened, and continued until 
1900, when, because of its unquestioned success and the 
enormous growth of the playground movement, two sep- 
arate outside organizations were formed, one for Allegheny 
County and one for Pittsburg, which now, with the help 
of the various women's clubs and an appropriation from 
the city, carry on all playground work. Arbor Day cele- 
brations were inaugurated in the public schools. Tree- 
planting and songs, lectures, and talks by notable people 
formed part of the yearly celebration. Evening schools for 
boys were instituted, which, though later abandoned, were 
of decided value in proving the necessity for evening in- 
dustrial work. In 1909 a night school for foreigners was 
started. Teachers volunteered to work with foreigners 
until they were far enough advanced to be transferred to 

191 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

the nearest public school, or iiulil (ho classes were large 
enough to justify the board of education in opening a special 
night school. For two years lectures on educntionnl and 
civic subjiH'ts to the foreign population have been advertised 
by handbills printed in several languages. During the cani- 
jiaign for the new school code, which did away with the 
notcn'ious system of ward control, the Civic Club was un- 
tiring in its energy. 

In 1909 it started an open air school at the tuberculosis 
hospital, and another one has recently been opened on the 
roof of a settlement. These two experiments, sup})leniented 
by lectures and widely distributed bulletins, are to convince 
the board of education that it would be advisable to estab- 
lish a similar class in each ward school. The initial move 
for medical inspection was made by the Civic C^lub. During 
the two years' struggle which followed, individual school 
boards in each w:u*d were encouraged to install school 
physicians at their own expense, until in 1910 medical 
inspection was assumed by the city. The light for school 
health has received no public recognition. (See page 208). 

To investigate the truancy situation eonnnit tees were ap- 
pointed, who decided that there was no need for a separate 
truant school in Pittsburg. They worked, however, until 
a successful bill made })ossible an all-year-round state in- 
dustrial training school for incorrigible boys. The club 
has secured constant publicity about school matters, and 
has given in schools many lectures and talks with stereopti- 
con slides for parents and children. 

"A great deal of the work of the Civic Club cannot be 

tabulated because it consists largely in starting movements 

and arousing public opinion, but through all the years of 

its existence our Civic Club has worked hard to improve 

the public schools." 

Three important independent agencies have been organized 

192 



HOW WOMEN ORGANIZE 

as results of the Club's fifteen years of existence besides 
the Playground Association — the Associated Charities of 
Pittsburg, the Child Labor Association of Allegheny County, 
and the Juvenile Court of Allegheny County. For further 
details write to Miss H. M. Dermitt, 238 Fourth Avenue, 
Pittsburg. 

Colored Women's Clubs 

Since 1896 there has been a National Association of 
Colored Women's Clubs. Do many of us realize the mean- 
ing of this organized effort of colored women to better them- 
selves and their conmiunities, how hampered their work is 
by race prejudice, how few resources for information, help, 
and stimulus are available to them? Uncomplaining, for 
the most part hopeful, the colored women are meeting their 
local problems with a persistence that might be emulated 
by similar groups of white women. From a study of Social 
Betterment among Negro Americans, made in 1910 by At- 
lanta University, we learn that as an organization the 
National Association has fourteen departments, including 
those of social service, domestic science, and juvenile court. 
There are affiliated clubs in forty states, rapidly increasing 
in membership and forming state and city federations. 
Yearly conventions are held to bring together the widely 
scattered experiences of north and south. 

Most of the philanthropic work done thus far by colored 
women seems to be connected on a small scale with churches 
and relief work. Old folks' homes, orphanages, reformatories, 
and hospitals are, however, still receiving by far the greatest 
amount of volunteer attention from colored women, just as 
hospitals and asylums are more readily helped by white 
people than are schools. Educational interest among col- 
ored women is most popularly expressed in kindergartens 

and reformatories. 

193 



IIIMIMNU SCHOOL CMlll.niMON 

In Arkansas tlioro aro I'olorod si-liool ini[M'o\ oukmU asso- 
ciations throuj2;lunit tho state. "These assist tenclKM-s in 
beautifying the grounds ami school rooms and in establisliing 
systems of rewards and incentives for better school work." 
Ut^hind the reports of rather meager aciH>mplishment it is 
(\nsy to feel energy and enthusiasm. For t^xample, the 
Woman's Home Progressive Club of Paris. Texas, com- 
posed mostly o( teachers, "gave SP2 oti a piano for (he city 
school." and plans **an educational department with a 
regular reading course." Another club in Paris tells how it 
worked for a year to raise $125 with which to aid the city 
in putting water fountains on the I'ampus of the colored 
school. The president of the city federation, in presenting 
the money to the board of education, assureil all present 
"that the colored women have it in their hearts to do 
something then\selves to aid in educating the children of 
their race." 

One club in Pirmingham has given scholarshijis to ilc^ 
serving pupils in the negro high sch(H>l and made "large 
donations" to the industrial depart n\ent. How large is 
not told. Also "through the work of an organization com- 
posed of the better I'lass of negro women in Pirmingham 
an industrial school has been started by purchasing 25 
acres of land near Alontgomery at a price of $2,000. Little 
waifs have already been sent." 

The KatYee Klatsch Club in Chicago organized the first 
summer vacation school for negro children, where for two 
yeai-s an avenige attendance of 19 received instruction in 
sewing, picture framing, and cooking. The Twentieth C\mi- 
tury Club of Xenia has fostered kindergartens for coh)red 
chiUiren. At a meeting of the Texas State Federation, 
where tl\e topic for discussimi was "The Mother's Part in Pre- 
venting Piseases." one paper dealt with "what the washer- 
women have ilone iov us as a race." Educational topics 

li)4 



IfOW WOMEN ORGANIZE 

form part of some club pro^amij, as, for exampki: "Have 
We a Voice in the School?" "The Best Education for Our 
Girls." Ln WaHhingtori the Pnidence Granfiall Association 
spent Sl,2rX) on rubbers, umbrellas, fi^iofiH, and eye i^snfiH 
for colored school children. This work wa>: inspirfjd ?jy the 
cas^i of a younj:^ colored boy who could not go to school 
becausfi l-jJ:-: r/jolher couJd not afford to buy shoes for him. 
He became a street loafer and, in a quarrel, stabbed another 
boy. Prudence Gran da] 1, a colored woman, started the 
first school for colored children in Gonnecticut, and in- 
dij^nant white neighbors poisoned her well-water, killed her 
chickeris, and othei'wise expressed their disapproval. 

In the reports of these clubs one feels first of all the new- 
ness of the endeavor. It ls as if children were playing a 
novel and fascinating game. The forms of organization 
are there. The chib routine and ritual, perfectly expressed, 
give joy to tfiese women so new in their self-goverrjmerit. 
But one feels the pathos of the little accomplished, the 
minute portions solved of t}je problems which confront the 
women and children of this race. 

Golored women\s clubs write reports that sound very 
much like those of smaller rural white clubs. They are be- 
ginning with the simplest, easiest things: giving food and 
clothes to the needy poor. Some clubs have gone deeper 
into the struggle against injastice to colored cljjldren and 
the shocking school conditions that exist in some parts of 
the south. They have attempted big, constructive work, 
or tried to get better accommodations and teachers with a 
little more intelligence. But frequently these progressives 
come squarely up against race prejudice and injustice tfiat 
has turned them back again to church relief, where at least 
they can work unmolested. 

Perhaps ineffectualness among colored women may be 
avoided, as among white clubs, by a method of cooperation 
14 ^ lor, 



UKl rixr, SCHOOL OH 11. OK EN 

which has pivvod itsolt' siiicocj^iil tnor ami vn or aiiain. 
Perhaj^s with a iiohnito pivgram ior txhicational work by 
women's olubv^ all colored ptx^ple mii:;ht concentrate on a 
problem ivally worth while. Perhaps the clubs will then 
numln^r not 2o, but iXX) meinbei's. 1 think no white club 
woman, however pivjudiced. could ivad the rt^port here 
quoted without ftvling a great sympathy for these I'olorcii 
women, who mv like cripples in tlieir haauiicap. trying to 
expn^ss the woman's longing for activity and for mental 
growth that uiay benefit her children and her race. 

Club Mtchanism 

Of course, each city hjvs its special ills which must he 
diagnosed individually. It has. however, Ixvn made clear 
by lettei's and reports from over -00 women in organizations 
that a certain method of cooperation always bring-s results, 
while other n\eth«.Hls fail. There is no question about the 
community service rendered by some clubs, l^ut every one 
will admit that clubs on the whole ai*e not doing as much 
as they might. It is only by seeing why more comnumity 
service h:is not been ivndeivd that we learn how to mend 
oiu' ways. 

1. It is pretty ginierally admit tt\l that women's work for 

schools is intermittent. "'Wonien by their very nature do 

not keep on continuously and indetinitely," writes one club 

woman. Of course, there come sivcalled crises when the 

very vitality of needs draws all women into the field. But 

a particular issue once settled, the club again lapses into 

pi\s^ve interest. The excuse that theiv is nothing important 

for women to do for schools is really never sound. \\ hen 

criticism of schools is as wide spread, as intelligent, aiui as 

serious as it is t(.vday. we are facing a chronic crisis. Where, 

as one woman writes, "Our conunittee is on the lookout 

nH> 



Ti W W M ]■: N \i G A 'S 1 Z E 

coriBtantly for opporturjitkis for Bervice," and wliero, coujiefl 
with tiji-H willJrjgrjfjHH to Fx^rvo, wori'j(':;n arfj watchirjg mf/illi- 
ii^cjiily and findi/jj^ out for thorrj.solvoH whiit tho schools 
arc rjot doing, intennittfint interest becomes continuous 
intercHt. 

2. One leader of a rnother-' club which had failed to get 
helpfully interested in its own problem wrote, "We sliall 
send delegates to the national meeting. i-*erhiips we may 
do better after thitt." iiut this impetus only affects one 
or two in ea/;h city. Every club sfifims to need the con- 
tinuous stimulus of personal leadership. When t?ie leading 
is interrupted, the club's service languishes. As yet few 
clubs seem to be so organized tliat a/;tual work does not 
depend upon the persorjality of the chairman, instead of 
the ground to be covered; or that programs are not based 
on the personal interest of the lea^ling members instead of 
on actual community needs. You hear time and again of 
irjterriipted work because the chairman of a committee has 
been ill or gone south. 

3. During the years when women were organizing, by- 
laws and constitutions were apparently more fascinating 
than service opportunity. Have you ever seen a group of 
womtjn wrangle — that is the only word for it — for two 
pnjcious hours over the constitutionality of an amendment, 
thus shoving into ten minutes' discussion some very im- 
portant questions about schools and health? 

4. One successful club woman has confessed tiiat the 

"difficulty with chairmen of educational committees in 

women's organizations is that they tend to rotate, and thus 

bring in untrained and slightly informed workers every 

one or two years. We need to have our plans formulated 

by the studied needs of the field so that we may be steadily 

in a position to assist new local workers in the existing 

organizations." This writer hopes to make it impossible 

197 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

for a newly elected chairman to upset or bring to an un- 
finished end a campaign well under way during the previ- 
ous administration. ^Vhat chairman cares to undertake to 
secure clean school houses, knowing that six months after 
her program is outlined she goes out of office and a new 
leader drops her work to take up lectures on music? 

5. W^ile officers are rotating no record is kept of what 
has been done or remains to be done. One newly elected 
chairman with an entire state to conquer wrote: *'I am 
working completely in the dark, because I have not any 
idea what has been done by this committee. I have lost 
much time." 

6. Pauses in club mterest seem to be due frequently to 
complete satisfaction when a small part of an undertaking 
is finished or to the wearing off of novelty. For example, 
a woman's club in a western town was trying to change 
seating and sanitation in the schools. One room in one 
building was bettered by its efforts, and it stopped. Sys- 
tematic housekeepers use shopping lists, and check off as 
purchases are made. Do you know any club which ''checks " 
off to see what remains to be done? Do you know a club 
which, so to speak, buj's etchings and opera scores when 
to-day's marketing isn't done? 

7. Then, too, women's clubs begin work late in October 
and end early in May. The sununer lapse makes a break 
after which the club's interest has to be stimulated all over 
again. Yet there are usually several women who stay in 
town. These should be returned their dues in pa3'ment 
for being ''on the job" in summer when there is usually 
pressing work to be done. 

8. The women interested in public schools are usually 
the women who are interested in hospitals, charity organi- 
zations, churches, and fresh air work. "The women have 
so many civic and philanthropic interests, and there is 

198 



'-■M^ - " 



-=?-f<i 




^ ^ mm^ mtii 



SKATING rink: ONE WOMAN BUNS IT 




•) l-.MPOKAKY KJNUEKGAKTEN: MOTHERS CLUB ST7PPORTS IT 




WHAT THE SCHOOL SHOWS FOR IT 
ALL-THE-YEAR-ROUND INTEREST IN BISMARCK 



HOW WOMEN ORGANIZE 

not a paid social worker in the community." Feeling often 
the inadequacy of volunteer work, women without training 
and without reliable supervision often miss opportunities 
or evade issues through the simple fear of making mistakes. 
That is why close cooperation with specialists and school 
people brings such good results. 

9. In spite of year books, little information about actual 
club work is in general circulation between outside clubs. 
When a club has done something good, every other club 
should know about it. When you read about a splendid 
accomplishment of somebody else in your field, you want to 
catch up or improve upon it. There is value to other clubs 
in reports written with constructive suggestions. 

10. Educational chairmen complain of difficulties in get- 
ting information. ''A very small percentage answers our 
circulars, and sometimes it takes two or three follow-up 
cards to secure replies." Chairman Laura D. Gill, speaking 
of her efforts to summarize the educational work of the 
Federation in 1910, confesses that only 20% of the clubs 
answered. "I feared that something was wrong with my 
method, and felt a trifle humiliated. This spring the whole 
well-organized machinery of the Federation was called into 
play. The returns have come from 44% of the clubs. Con- 
sequently I am rating the Federation's business efficiency 
at the low grade of 44%." '^ Questionnaires," writes Mrs. 
G. H. Pettinger, whose work in Oregon suggests many points 
for the method that makes things happen, ''are for sug- 
gestions as to what might be taken up. They keep us in 
touch also with local needs, so that we can advise intelli- 
gently." I have noticed that very few women answer 
questions on a basis of facts. One club notified us formally 
that "a committee has been appointed to fill out yoiu- card 
with the information as desired," and nothing has since 
been heard from that club or its committee. 

199 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

From thesse ten criticisms of club mechanism written 
by clubwomen themselves, apparently what most clubs 
need is a program to cover 100% of a specific question, 
either through the club's own efforts alone or through sup- 
plementary work by officials; a stable club organization; 
and leadership based on ability to meet actual school needs 
and to effect closer cooperation with the superintendent 
and principals. Specific suggestions about methods which 
help make club work efficient along all lines are to be found 
in abundance in Wo7nan's Part in Government, by William 
H. Allen. 

A State Program for Women's Clubs 

We wanted to try out the hypothesis that the federation 
year-book is a potent means of stimulating club work. We 
therefore sent out through the educational committee of the 
state federation a questionnaire to all the women's clubs in 
the state of New Jersey asking them whether they had com- 
mittees on education, what these committees had done, how 
much money they had to spend, and whether they would be 
interested in making a threefold study of school work in New 
Jersey. There are 135 clubs in the state, and 58 answered. 
That means over one-half of the clubs made no report. 
Only 22 of these 58 were doing educational work, and only 15 
of them had committees on education. This statement of 
what clubs had done for schools, contrasted with what clubs 
had an opportunity of doing, is not peculiar to New Jersey. 

The summary of replies was printed as an appendix to 
the year-book with a threefold program. Interested clubs 
were asked to communicate at once with the state chairman 
of education. The program included: (1) the uniform 
watching of medical examination and follow-up work to 
see how far the excellent state law is being enforced; how 

200 



HOW WOMEN ORGANIZE 

far examinations are being followed by nursing and free 
treatment; and which forms and methods are best in re- 
cording health work with school children; (2) a sanitary 
survey of schools to get a composite picture of school con- 
ditions including ventilation, lighting, heating, fire drill; 
and (3) a uniform study of non-promotion to bring out 
clearly the reasons for children's failing, what can be done 
about it, and what administrative changes are necessary 
to keep from failing children who do not need to fail. 

With the help of the Robert L. Stevens Fund for Munici- 
pal Research in Hoboken, the chairman of education has 
prepared for each of these three studies questionnaires based 
on the experience of other communities. District and city 
chairmen of educational committees promised to have the 
blanks filled out properly. The state superintendent ex- 
pressed his interest in the work, and approved the medical 
supervision blank reproduced on page 217. 

The success of this test of state-wide club work in New 
Jersey will mean, first of all, that there will be no excuse 
for club work in other states to fall below its standard; it 
will also mean that every club member in New Jersey will 
have an easy way of being intelligently informed about 
three fundamental school problems; and lastly, that the 
club mechanism for school cooperation will be so developed 
that investigation of other school problems and constructive 
changes will follow logically. The studies will also show 
that, through women's clubs, the state department of edu- 
cation has an opportunity to secure information and facts 
of inestimable value both to New Jersey and to every state 
in the union. 



TX 

PHYSICIANS AND 'VUV. UK.W.TU OV ScMUXM, rHll.OHKN 

Medical Inspcdion for 'l^rafh^ffiist^ihlc Diseases 

IN (ho coinplii'atoil si'h(H>l systom of to-ilay cooperation 
from tnitsido has to bo spooializod, ami tlio physician 
is logically the man to take the Icatl in matters o( liealth. 
Of the pliysicians you know, how many liave felt the scien- 
tific value of schools as an experimenting meilium? How 
many have given warm-heart eilly of personal service in 
treating poor chiUlren? How many have endeavored to get 
schools to (\o what is necessary for the health and healthful 
environment of all children? 

It is not necessary to give here the arguments for the 
physical care of chiUlren at school. IMuch has been written 
and said on the subject iluring the last years; the news- 
papers have had colunms about it; nuxlical journals have 
emphasized tlie connection between schools and health. 
Convincing treatment is given the subject in William 11. 
Allen's dries and Hcalfh. "It has been conceded among 
educators." wrote owe superintendent, "that no improve- 
ment in rei'ent years has been so helpful to the public schools 
and to children as the system of medical inspection." The 
Kussell Sage Foundation is constantly gathering statistics 
about medical inspection, laws, methods, results, and has 
{niblished much, including Caihck and Ayres's Medical 
Inspection in Public Schools. As Dr. Ernest B. Hoag 

202 



HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 

Bays, in The Health Index of School Children, "Only the 
most unpro^rcjssivo communities now oppose this sort of 
work, and only careless communities fail to avail themselves 
of its advantages." This chapter does not pretend to offer 
information about systems, or to outline the best kind of 
inspection. We hope here merely to show how physicians 
and those interested in the health of school children have 
used the agencies that are available for help in this field. 

Many physicians have written us that they would be 
glad to have information about what had been done in other 
cities, to help convince citizens through the press that 
medical inspection is a community question. Lack of 
information, lack of support, lack of knowledge as to meth- 
ods and next steps, and not lack of interest or lack of en- 
thusiasm on the physicians' part, are usually responsible 
for the absence of adequate systems of medical inspection 
and the presence of gross violations of the health code in 
our school systems. 

You often read of the ''wave of interest" which is forcing 
the health care of children through the public schools; yet 
the cities where nothing, or only a little, has been done 
are still in the majority. Several cities report complete 
absence of medical inspection and no organized work by 
physicians. Statements of this kind usually imply that some- 
thing ought to be done, that it is the physicians' duty to 
do it, and that the time is now ripe for the doing. The 
superintendent in Flint feels "that a concerted demand 
from the citizens for medical inspection and a school nurse 
would result in securing both." A physician in South Beth- 
lehem writes, "I feel confident that in a short time these 
important matters of sanitation and hygiene will be added 
to our school regime, as the people are becoming alive to the 
necessity, and to the fact that they are very much behind 
other communities in this regard." In many cities where 

203 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

some one has written that there is no medical inspection, 
we have learned on further questioning that there is either 
a small group of physicians ready to take up this work, 
but unorganized and without support, or a superintendent 
eager to see something done and not knowing how to go 
about it. 

An interesting volunteer arrangement for inspection was 
made by Dr. Paul Paquin, inspector in Asheville. He di- 
vided the work for white and black schools among twelve 
competent physicians who for two years inspected the 
schools, without charge, regularly every week and whenever 
called upon. Afterward the school committee paid the 
regular fee, $2.00 a visit. These visits to schools involved 
investigation of all the sanitary and health conditions of 
each school: ventilation, heat, water supply, drinking cups, 
recreation methods, and even the teachers' health. Naturally 
careful watch was kept for infectious diseases. As a matter 
of prophylaxis. Dr. Paquin established a system of daily 
inspection and recording by teachers of the individual health 
conditions of pupils. This required, of course, the proper 
instruction of teachers in advance on necessary questions 
of hygiene. Each classroom was provided with a fever 
thermometer kept sterilized in a bottle of alcohol. Every 
morning as pupils passed on their way to the classroom 
any child seeming flushed or drowsy, or exhibiting signs of 
indisposition, had his temperature taken. In each case of 
abnormal temperature the pupil was immediately sent home 
with a printed explanatory card and a request that he be 
at once taken to the family physician. By this method the 
hearty cooperation of the local profession was secured, 
much contagious disease was prevented, and numerous cases 
of adenoids and other deficiencies were brought to the at- 
tention of parents. When the family physician was not 
called in, the medical inspectors gave such advice and 

204 



HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 

assistance free as the situation demanded, and determined 
when the child should return to school. While this system 
was in practice Dr. Paquin volunteered illustrated lectures 
for pupils, teachers, and parents on private and public health. 

Is the examination for transmissible diseases in your schools made regu- 
larly by health officer, school physician, nurse, teacher, or by 
no one? 

Are cases of contagious disease investigated by some official before the 
child is permitted to return to school? 

Who is watching for communicable eye and skin diseases — ringworms, 
trachoma, pediculosis? 

Are children treated for these diseases in school or at home until cured? 

Who, when necessary, shows mothers how to treat skin diseases and 
pediculosis? 

Are teachers instructed to recognize symptoms of scarlet fever, measles, 
skin diseases, etc.? 

What facihties do hospitals and dispensaries offer for treating com- 
municable eye and skin diseases? 

What happens to the textbooks of children excluded for contagious 
ailments? 

How often are all textbooks fumigated? Are books being used^ which 
are a "menace to all children"? 

Are the schools notified by the health officials of contagious diseases in 
families where there are school children? 

Are these children admitted to school before the health officer has 
adequately fumigated their homes? 

Which is better: Send your child to a private school in the belief that 
transmissible diseases will not be found there, or see that there is a 
school nurse who is making contagion as nearly avoidable as possible? 

The latest reports on medical examination and free treat- 
ment with comparative legal provisions may be had from 
the Russell Sage Foundation, 1 Madison Avenue, New 
York. 

How Examination for Physical Defects Starts 

The superintendent of the Braddock public schools ad- 
dressed the local medical society on "The Need of Syste- 

205 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

matic Medical Inspection in Schools." He then asked the 
society to arrange for a general inspection of public school 
children. It was moved that a committee be appointed to 
plan this inspection. A certain number of physicians were 
allotted to the schools in every ward, and each child was 
examined separately for eye, ear, nose, and throat defects. 
Where indications of systemic disease were present, a 
complete general examination was made. The physicians 
were ser^ing without pay. As a result of this preliminary 
inspection the superintendent was able to persuade the 
school board to appropriate money for regidar examination 
during the next year, and one physician was assigned to 
each ward at a nominal salary "to put the inspection on a 
business basis." Physicians were required to inspect each 
child twice during the year, subject at the same thne to 
emergency calls from the school buildings. Cases needing 
medical and surgical treatment were attended to by a group 
of physicians who willingly donated services to deserving 
children. The next year Braddock had one physician on 
an adequate salary. The superintendent had learned that 
there ought to be a dispensary in the hospital or in one of 
the school buildings where children might receive free 
treatment. Clinics for school children and follow-up work 
through nurses are the logical and almost inevitable sequence. 
The results of the inspection maj- be taken as typical; of 
1.949 children examined, -ISo only were found not defective. 
The most frequent defects were of teeth in 1,0S4; enlarged 
tonsils, 375; defective noses, 393. 

In Kenosha physical examination was backed by the 
medical society and made b}' one physician serving without 
salary in each school. Every scholar is examined once a 
yeaj, and more thorough overhauling is maiie when neces- 
sary. Correction of defects is suggested by notices, though 
parents ai'e not compelled to carry out reconnnendations 

•200 



HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 

made by the school physicians. In cases of contagious 
disease, however, the school physician has power to control 
the pupil's action. The medical society is authorized for 
this work by the school board, but feels that '^state authority 
would be an advantage." 

The origin of physical examination is suggestive in 
showing who makes the first move. In Aurora the super- 
intendent and a physician on the school board were re- 
sponsible; in Fort Smith the president of the board of 
health and the medical society instituted a plan which was 
approved by the school board, health authorities, physicians, 
specialists, and dentists; in Fulton one physician, under 
the direction of the professor of educational psychology 
in the University of Missouri, examined 1,000 white and 100 
colored children for defects of eyes, ears, noses, and throats, 
in order to correlate sensory defects with school progress. 

Members of the Milwaukee Medical Society, after dis- 
cussing medical inspection, had a meeting to decide on pre- 
liminary work for schools. Three schools were designated 
by the superintendent as representative of the school popu- 
lation, six physicians were appointed, and the result of the 
inspection was used as a plea for continuing the work. 
The board of school directors was unable to act until two 
years later, when a medical inspector was appointed, and 
later five assistants. Dr. G. P. Barth, chief medical in- 
spector, has issued a little summary entitled Medical 
Inspection of Schools in Milwaukee, which details the 
routine used, rules about exclusion, report cards, special 
cases, and directions to school nurses. While this system 
has been developing, all the physicians, dentists, dispen- 
saries, and hospitals have been "very generous in pro- 
viding free treatment of whatever nature necessary, upon 
presentation of a card from the medical inspector's office." 

In Spartanburg a woman physician suggested to the 

207 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

County ^lodii'al Society that it examino j2;ratuitinisiy for 
one year the grade eehool ehikiivn. The school trustees 
accepted the otYer. Three nuniical inspectors were ap- 
pointed by the society. "We hope our report to the scliool 
trustees when the work* is finished will convinee them of 
the importance of it, and that hereafter some one will be 
regularly appointed to do this work." 

Examination by teachers for physical defects has been 
declared to be in the same city both adequate and futile. 
An OutUnv for the Health (inuiinij of the School ('/(//(/.avail- 
able from Dr. E. B. Hoag. Minnesota State Botird of Health, 
shows how teachers can find W(> of the defective chihlren. 

The advantages of a lay backing in starting physical 
examination are shown, for example, in Elmira, where 
through the Social Service League women maile a "system- 
atized etYort to secure examination, winning the consent of 
the Academy of jNIedicine. They were very willing to co- 
operate." The health committee of the General Fetleration 
of Women's Clubs sets aside one month in which all clubs 
are asked to consider ways of securing medical inspection, or 
to stuily its etticiency if already required. The story of the 
Civic Club in Pittsburg shows \\hat a large part of the 
work can be done by a lay body. 

The oduoational departiuont in 1005 iuitiatod a campaign for inodiojil 
inspection in the public schools by sending committees to interview school 
directors and enlisting physicians who would give their services without 
remuneration imtil the value of inspection should be established. The 
tirst inspection took place in Decemlier. 1005, after which the Allegheny 
County IMeilical Association otYered to appoint physicians to inspect 
all the schools, provided the consent of the school boards could be si^ 
eureil. Letters were sent by Mrs. Macreen to tifty-one school boanls— 
about half of whom sent favorable replies. Twenty-four sclu>ols were 
inspected. After two years of vohmteer medical inspect iim the Civic 
Club introduced a bill in the 1007 legislature that failed to pass. In 
lOOS thev prepared a petition and appeared before the Educational Coui- 

•JOS 



HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 

mission appointerl by Governor Stuart, at its first meeting, held in Pitts- 
burg in May, 1908, and urged thiit it embody in its school code a pro- 
vision for rnodical Lri.spootion in the schools. Conferences were held 
and correspondence conducted on the subject, which resulted in the 
Commission embodying in its code the committee's provisions, with the 
exception that medical inspection was made mandatory in large cities 
and permissive in smaller school districts. The school code failed at tliat 
session of the legislature, however. 

In 1908 and 1909 other attempts were made to secure medical in- 
Bpection by the city, which all failed, but individual school boards, ten 
of them, ha/1 now installed physicians at their own expense, as a direct 
result. Thes/i were almost all cases of the volunteer inspection, and in 
1910 medical inspection was taken up by the city, which now has twenty- 
seven regiilar inspectors who visit the schools daily. We feel that the 
long figlit of the department of education has been amply justified — 
thougli we liave never received public recognition of our services. 

The chief necessity in starting physical examination is 
a starter. It matters little whether it is the superintendent, 
one physician, a medical society, a mothers' club, or a 
chamber of commerce. A preliminary inspection is usually 
convincing, Imt someone's continuous interest is required — 

To get facts from other cities and state the case; 

To bring togetlier superintendent, board of education, physicians, 
women's clubs, and newspapers; 

To outline a preliminary examination; 

To see that the town knows an inspection is to be made; and 

To suggest to those interested how they can secure the necessary pub- 
licity, legislation, and budget increase. 

Free Treatment of Physical Defects 

With the discovery of adenoids and hypertrophied tonsils, 
we have taken only one little step toward the goal of school 
health. What is the use of telling the parents of 85% of 
our school children that their offspring is not physicallj^ fit 
to go to school, if parents either will not or cannot afford 

209 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

to do anything about making; it lit? Uhto is one city, 
and probably many others, where no system of inspection 
was instituted after a vohuiteer examination, because 
physicians were unable to give treatment and follow-up 
work, and the experiment was considered a mere matter 
of paper and statistics. 

To secure free treatment, school physicians have some- 
times been able to make arrangements with clinics and dis- 
pensaries. In Elmira there is a room in the city hall for 
medical and dental work for school children. In Berkeley 
cases are treated by a cooperative committee of all health 
agencies. Children are admitted for free treatment by 
cards from the organized charity. In Wausaw there is a 
free infirmary for children, supported by popular subscrip- 
tion, where the poor can obtain medical and dental care. 
Work is vohmteeretl by practically all the physicians and 
dentists of the city, alternating their services. The in- 
firmary has a visiting nurse who attends to the cases of 
physical defects reported from the schools. In Covington 
three specialists volunteer treatment for all cases referred 
by the school inspector. 

The truant officer in Beloit, who is not a nurse, sees that 
the cases referred by the medical inspector receive the 
necessary treatment. Until a medical and dental clinic is 
established the physicians have ai'ranged a temporary plan 
for the free treatment of needy eye, ear, nose, and throat 
cases. The n\edical inspector gives a card showing in what 
respect the pupil needs attention. If within a reasonable 
time treatment is not reported as given, he sends another 
card. If that is ignored, the truant ofiicer sees the parents 
and explains to them the necessity of doing something. If 
they are unable to pay, she arranges with the inspector 
for free treatment by referring cases alternately to spe- 
cialists who have agreed to give the service. In cases re- 

210 




TEACHI.N'C; ril{ST-AID-T(J-THK-IX.ItKF,I): CLEVELAND CHAMBEFt OF COMMERCE 




MUSKEGON DENTAL SOCIETY MCCORMICK FUND: CHICAGO 

OUTSIDERS PROMOTE SCHOOL HEALTH 



HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 

quiring an anesthetic, physicians are called in rotation. 
"We are striving/' writes the chairman of the school board's 
committee on health, 'Ho work out some plan which will 
be just to the physicians and dentists, but will not pauperize 
the poor or repress their sturdy independence, and yet see 
that full justice is done the children." 

In Pasadena each medical inspector has a clerical assistant 
with some training in social work. The teachers are re- 
quired yearly to secure from the parents, within two weeks 
after the first notification has been sent, a statement as to 
what care the child is receiving. 

Watching individual cases, the teacher or physician has 
opportunity to correlate removable physical defects and 
school progress. Accurate records of twenty children who 
have had adequate medical and dental attention do more 
to make it easy for communities and school boards to secure 
medical inspection than a million records of physical defects 
without follow-up work. Such correlation has been made 
by teachers in Columbus, Ohio. Every child who had his 
adenoids removed, his teeth fixed, or eye strain lessened by 
glasses, did proportionately better work, saved the teacher 
extra care, and saved the state money wasted on "re- 
peaters." 

Women's clubs can suggest special arrangements to hos- 
pitals and dispensaries, and, as trustees and directors, business 
men have an opportunity to see that adequate provision is 
made for special treatment of school children. Dispensaries 
are usually more than willing to conduct after-school and 
special Saturday clinics, and to furnish the school with a 
record of treatment given, if blanks like that on page 99 
are provided to make it easy. Some hospitals post notices 
in or send word to schools in their neighborhood that they 
are glad to treat children. Social service nurses visit schools 
and homes of children under treatment. A committee of 

15 211 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

women or physicians can see that all hospitals are using 
the same forms and standards for reporting to the school 
''cases treated" and "cases terminated"; can make a pin 
map showing which hospitals are easily accessible by 
school children, and which districts are wholly without 
facilities for treatment; can bring before the public the 
pros and cons of having school clinics districted, like the 
tuberculosis clinics in New York, so that school nurses or 
teachers know exactly where to go. In large cities a map 
for each school district might be posted in schools for refer- 
ence use by children themselves and by parents. Hand- 
books for teachers locating facilities for free treatment are 
serviceable. 

The School Nurse 

Did you ever see a pin map which locates by means of 
colored pins every school child who has been ill during the 
year? It makes a significant picture, telling the story of 
epidemics, of measles and scarlet fever, and of uncared-for 
physical defects. Each little pin means days of school lost, 
means a child that should have had some physical care. 
Did he get it? That is the question the school nurse answers. 
In the city of Hoboken the Robert L. Stevens Fund for 
Municipal Research gave to the board of education free for 
six months the services of a school nurse. Every morning 
the nurse received the names of children excluded by prin- 
cipals because of suspicious symptoms, and visited them. 
As soon as the medical examiners made out cards for physical 
defects she visited each home and persuaded parents to 
have their children cared for. She gave treatments in 
homes for pediculosis and skin diseases, showing mothers 
how to care for simple ailments. Every case visited was re- 
ported in detail to the Fund. It was estimated that by 
obviating only 40 non-promotions the nurse would save 

212 



HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 

her own annual salary. By this six months' experiment 
the board of education in Hoboken was convinced that a 
nurse was not only a desirable but a paying adjunct for 
the school system. So money to continue her services was 
asked and granted in the next year's budget. 

The same thing can be accomplished by any group of 
citizens who will raise the salary of a nurse for a month's or 
a year's trial; supervise her work and records; make public 
the reports; and see that budget requests are supported 
by letters to officials, newspaper articles, and open meet- 
ings. 

The only reason every school system has not school nurses 
is that citizens have not demanded them. It takes money 
to pay salaries, which means a budget change; and it takes 
understanding, which means a demonstration with plenty 
of publicity. There are many clubs of women to-day sup- 
porting wholly or in part a nurse for schools. They have as 
authority for this the general consensus of opinion from 
the medical profession on the absolute necessity for a 
follow-up scheme to supplement examination by physi- 
cians. The common sense of parents and teachers will 
always realize that having defective vision recorded on 
Johnny's physical card really does not help Johnny to see 
better. 

The more common physical defects which are playing 
havoc with children and their school work are easily de- 
tected by a nurse who in smaller communities often takes 
the place of the school physician. Of the two, the school 
nurse is more important than the school physician. She is 
less expensive, but works less rapidly. A first-class nurse 
can be secured for what would pay only a second-class 
physician. She gets for the child, besides, the best that best 
doctors can give. 

I know one school nurse, and there are probably many 

213 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

others, who does not see the vahie of systematic record 
keeping. She says it takes too much time and shows noth- 
ing. Try, without records, to locate by a pin map, for 
example, the districts where most work is needed; try to 
estimate the money saved by absences prevented and 
non-promotions avoided; try to judge the efficiency of a 
nurse, and you will see why records are worth while. It is 
undoubtedly true that any nurse, at the call of the super- 
intendent and principals, can without an adecjuate system 
of reporting be of great service to schools, but not of the 
greatest. 

School nursing is a phase of the nursing profession that 
offers exceptional opportunities and attractions. It demands 
sympathetic understanding of school requirements and the 
skill and tact of a relief visitor. The nurse is in touch with 
charitable agencies, with hospitals and clinics, w^ith special- 
ists who are willing to give free treatment, and with the 
entire school system. 



Where the Visiting Niirse Association Helps 

There is no question about the enthusiasm of superin- 
tendents for this type of outside cooperation. In Chelsea 
"the medical inspectors and superintendent are very de- 
sirous of securing a school nurse, but as yet the school com- 
mittee does not see that it can be done. There is, however, 
a District Nurse Association which has agreed to respond to 
urgent calls made by the school physician, truant officer, 
or any of the school principals." It w^as the Visiting Nurse 
Association in Denver that persuaded the board to secure 
a school nurse. From Harrisburg: "It gives me great 
pleasure to state that our very complete system of medical 
inspection originated with the Visiting Nurse Association, 

214 



HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 

an organization supported by a few charitable people. It 
was their interest that created enthusiasm for the subject." 
Speaking of the nurse loaned in Marquette, the superin- 
tendent says, "She has proved a most helpful adjunct in 
our force for maintaining the good school work we have 
attempted to do." 

This is the way it usually happens: "The past winter the 
Visiting Nurse Association has put into the schools a nurse 
who does regular inspection and home visiting, reporting 
each month to the board of education. All the expenses 
are borne by the Association in order to demonstrate to the 
public the value of school nursing." It seems so simple. 
The Association in Reading gave the services of a nurse 
for two months, and the school board promptly engaged a 
school nurse for the rest of the term. 

Through an association of nurses it is sometimes easier 
to get a system of school nurses than by independent work 
as a lay organization. Most district nursing organizations 
are poor, developing their work by inches, with little margin 
for whole-time work solely in schools. A lay society can 
furnish the wherewithal to make school work possible. 
For example, the Social Service League and District Nurse 
Association of Middletown, Connecticut, together have fur- 
nished a nurse who does nothing but inspect in the schools 
and see that suggestions to parents about free treatments 
are carried out. In Chillicothe a district nurse is main- 
tained jointly by the Anti-Tuberculosis Society and the 
Century Club of women, who raise the necessary money 
for supplies and salary by the sale of red cross seals at 
Christmas time. " The nurse is in constant coopera- 
tion with the teachers of our schools, gives talks at moth- 
ers' meetings, or takes children for treatment to dentists 
and physicians when parents cannot afford professional 
care." , 

215 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

Ask the Visiting Nurse Association in your city whetlier 
it considers cases founii in schools worth the entire time of 
one nurse. Seven hundred dolhu's is not nuich to pay for 
starting a pt^nnanent system of medical inspection. Have 
one of the mu'ses address your cluh and outline what a school 
nui-se could accomplisli in your city. U you are a trustee 
of the Association, get the superintendent to spetik before 
the board and tell o( the iuhhI for school nurses. 

Watching Work as it Progi-esses 

Having secured examination and provision for treatment 
of physical defects, the same outsiders who have helped 
thus far are the ones best equipped to see whether the 
system works. A compulsory law does not necessmily 
mean that the adenoid disappears. A year after one state 
had passed an excellent law the state department of edu- 
cation could not tell in which districts it was being en- 
forced, what sort of physicians were employed, or what 
they were doing. The department had an "idea" that 
about half the school districts had not yet begun to obey 
the law in letter, and more had not felt the law's spirit, but 
were making inspection a mere form. Medical inspection 
can easily be an unwelcome gift luiless some one person or 
some group is watching to see what sort of a reception 
those responsible are going to give it. And this means 
watching for a year or two, testing here and there, going 
over the medical records of one or U\o schools, or making 
a thorough sur\ey of the results oi the first year's trial. 
The blank on the opposite page is being used tor this purpose 
by all the women's clubs in New Jersey. 



216 



HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 



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HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 

As proved by the High School Teachers' Association in 
New York, the parallel column shows clearly how inspection 
is working: 

WPxat the Medical IiLspector What He Might Do 

Does in Nine Schools 1. Examine pupils taken sick dur- 

1. Signs name in book ing school hours 

2. Leaves building 2. Examine backward pupUs for 

remediable defects that cause 
retardation 

3. Examine pupils who are fre- 

quently absent 

4. Cooperate with principals and 

teachers to raise health stan- 
dard of schools by 

a. Occasional talks on 
health topics 

b. Supervision of Iimcheons 

c. Advice to individual 
pupils 

What One Physician Can Do 

It is unfortunate that the interest of physicians as indi- 
viduals has sometimes proved of no advantage to schools 
because the necessary community interest and backing has 
not been forthcoming. Three years ago some of the younger 
physicians in one eastern city volunteered to make daily 
medical inspection in the public schools. This was con- 
tinued for about one year, but interest gradually waned 
and now there is no inspection of any kind. The individual 
interest and energy of these physicians was not supported 
by a medical society or a lay organization, and nothing per- 
manent resulted. In another place one physician made an 
examination of 100 defective children, and nothing further 
resulted. A physician in Marshaltown whites : ''For my 
own information I went into our schools and inspected about 
125 children in the second grade, and found defective, gross 

221 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

phj^sical conditiorLS in about 33^, which I believe would 
easily reach oO^c i^ ^ more thorough examination. Kindly 
advise me in whatever way you chooi?e how to set the ball 
rolling in Marshaltown." In Orange a few individual phy- 
sicians give free treatment when ca.ses are brought to their 
attention. In South Bend individual physicians have given 
talks and lectures in the schools at inten'als. '"They have 
no permanent committees to cvx)perate with teachers or 
others interested. In four years this city imder the Indiana 
law will have to start a s}*stem of medical inspection. 
Whether it will wait imtH it is forced foiu- years hence or 
avail itself of the privilege at once remains to be seen.'' 
In a Pennsylvania city a phv'sician writes that he is the 
only ma.n in town interested in school health, and that he 
finds it hard to secure enough intelligent backing to get 
anvthing done. 

It is quite evident from instances like these that vokmteer 
service alone cannot be successful or permanent. Physi- 
cians tire, the social service novelty wears off, and unless 
the work is put on a business basis as part of the school 
system, or of the board of health, it languishes. 

It is unfortunately true that oftentimes the interest of 
individual phv^sicians in school matters has been less spon- 
taneous because of the fear that any action on their part 
would be construed as looking for practice, and would thus 
offend against the ethics of the profession. It seems absiu\i to 
think that after medical inspection has proved its value in 
so many ways there are still those who are smaU enough 
to bring up this accusation. Physicians have given their 
services, sometimes for several years without pay, and their 
cooperation has been welcomed by school people. The un- 
selfish work of hundreds of vokmteer physicians for schools, 
their eagerness to turn over medical inspection to school 
<Mr health authorities, and their generous giving of pro- 



HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 

feasional experience for free treataient ought to make it 
impossible in this day and generation for anybody to accuse 

them of self-advertLsement. 

However indignant it may make us, criticism does east, 
and consequenth" a physician can frequently get done 
through a medical society or a lay orga ni zation things which 
he would be unable, because of jxrrsonal op]X)sition. to ac- 
complish by himself or with one or two kindred spirits. 
A physician representing a medical society can work for 
school children in his cir^' without fear of being calumnized 
personally. 

Everything that is possible for organized physicians is 
jxjssible for organized nurses, A nurse working through a 
visiting nurse association can secure greater momentum by 
representing a group than by years of isolated service. A 
physician recently said: '"'We are ready and willing to do 
everj'thing we can for school children, but some one must 
arrange things. There must be a bridge between the phy- 
sicians and the schools. Some one has to act a^s a social 
broker. The schools want what we can give them, we want 
to give them what we can, but the gap between must be 
fiUed by a social broker, who sees both sides and can make 
the connection." 

Physicians and the School Budget 

Since only once a year is it possible to determine how 
much money is going to be spent on the health of school 
children during the com in g year, the physicians" interest 
should come out strongly at budget time. That is when 
medical societies and school hygiene societies should back 
by newspaper pubhcitj' and letters to officials the items 
in the board of education and the health department budgets 
which have to do with increased open air work, with sani- 

223 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

tary improvements, adequate medical inspection, and follow- 
up work. Yet at the budget hearings in New York in 1911, 
for example, when the questions of open air rooms and re- 
organization in the child hygiene department were being dis- 
cussed, no action was taken by organized physicians, and no 
publicity was given to these measures through physicians. 

Physicians on School Boards 

While there is an opportunity for community service by 
any physician through publicity and cooperation with other 
organizations on special phases of school health, a physician 
who is firmly intrenched on a school board, either a city 
board or a local visiting committee, has a more intimate 
connection with school work and is better able to get re- 
sults. Aside from initiating, he can watch how things are 
going, use records to discover where and when follow-up 
work is breaking down, and make correlations between 
mental and physical qualities. In Birmingham, as in 
Aurora and Beloit, a physician on the school board was re- 
sponsible for starting the system of medical inspection. 
A physician in Aurora writes: ''Doctors have little, dentists 
nothing, to do with medical inspection. The superintendent 
and the doctors on the board were responsible." There is 
a rather unique system in Los Angeles by which an advisory 
medical board of volunteer physicians acts with the board 
of education on school health matters. 

If a school board were to have a commission form, the 
physician would represent the health interests of the entire 
city as interpreted through the public schools. There are 
four physicians on a board of 46 members in New York, 
yet the board of education has no school health committee. 
Medical inspection as done by the department of health is 
being constantly criticized, and outside organizations are 

224 



HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 

constantly trying to help on problems of sanitation, open air 
schools, and free treatment. 

For community service through safeguarding children's 
health, what opportunity is there equal to the opportunity 
offered a physician on a school board with all the support 
of successful science for his program? 

Specialists and the Abnormal Child 

In spite of all the work that remains to be done for nor- 
mal children, the 99% who are growing up strong and 
healthy, the appeal of blind children, deaf children, and 
cripples is still recognized first. Fundamentally humane, 
the sympathy and interest which is never failing for this 
one per cent of children is a beautiful thing; yet, in so far as 
interest in any one per cent, however unfortunate and 
pitiful, blinds the community to the needs and the dangers 
that are threatening 99%, that interest is harmful. Watch- 
ing the marvelous development of work with the blind, 
reading newspaper stories and sympathetic details about 
cripples and what is being done for them, the community 
forgets that during the school year perhaps ten times as 
many children are being threatened with blindness because 
of uncorrected defects of vision, poor lighting, or bad print- 
ing, and perhaps three times as many children might be 
saved from becoming cripples by proper care of curable 
physical defects or the right kind of seats and desks, before 
it is too late. 

Working with defectives is one way to prove the needs 
of normal children; but most people who are not scientists 
are apt to get so absorbed in the problem of the abnormal 
child itself that they forget there is such a thing as a normal 
child. The rank and file of moderately healthy, moderately 
red-cheeked youngsters make no emotional appeal to our pity. 

225 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

In Birmingham the medical director is medical director 
for aU children, normal and otherwise, and has recently 
made a study of backward children. An especiall}^ trained 
teacher and two nurses were appointed. The teacher, going 
to each school, obtained a list of backward chikh-en, and 
secured important facts about home surroundings and mental 
characteristics. The children were physically examined by 
the medical inspector. When the records are complete the 
proper treatment will be given to each child, whether it be 
coaching in studies, open air work, vocational work, or 
special instruction in classes for defectives. The inspector 
writes: "We are in the midst of this work now. It is most 
interesting, and promises great results. In this instance 
defective children are simply a unit of a big system all of 
which must receive the proper kind of attention." 

The discoveries of psychological clinics have shown how 
miracles can be wrought through work with mental defec- 
tives in special classes. The complete story of what the 
Psychological Clinic of the University of Pennsylvania has 
proved by its summer work with special children is told in 
an extremely interesting way by Dr. Light ner Witmer and 
others in The Special Class for Backward Children. 

A'arious schemes for stimulating dull children are being 
worked out in other clinics and laboratories. Using elec- 
tricity is one method. Another experiment was made with 
a small group of public school defectives who were taught 
arithmetic and reading via physical exercise. Finding out 
that children are defective should be followed by getting 
the board of education to provide special instruction or un- 
graded classes. For information about school work with 
defective children, write Miss Elizabeth Farrell, Board of 
Education, New York. 

The American Association for the Conservation of Vision, 
organized recently by the American JNIedical Association 

226 



HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 

and the Russell Sage Foundation, is planning an active 
campaign to educate the public in the care of the eyes. 
An investigation of school children in Missouri showed that 
four out of every ten children need glasses, and only four 
out of 100 are wearing them. It was proved that defective 
vision is an appreciable positive factor, handicapping the 
child at his studies. At the San Francisco meeting of the 
National Education Association, Dr. Shawan, of Columbus, 
Ohio, gave the results of a study made by him into the state 
laws governing the amount of light admitted into school 
rooms. A physician said that one-third of all blindness is 
preventable, and spoke with enthusiasm of what will be 
done when the Association and groups of workers, teachers, 
doctors, architects, engineers, and parents cooperate. In 
an organized fight against preventable blindness, eye spe- 
cialists have a splendid opportunity to help. A special eye 
clinic at one of the large New York schools for pupils with 
trachoma has brought about the instruction of these children 
in a separate class. 

Physicians as specialists do not feel the necessity for con- 
tinuous school cooperation. It has been possible for them 
to lose interest during the intervals when they are not 
needed, but when called on they realize the opportunity in 
this work. Should a specialist be allowed to volunteer 
routine, detailed work which can be done by nurses or 
regular inspectors? 

Open Air Schools 

There is an especially good chance in the open air school 
for cooperation by outside agencies. The initial move to 
secure classes which give anemic children a chance to grow 
normal comes from groups of physicians, from tuber- 
culosis societies, women's clubs, and superintendents, but 
usually from a combination of two or three of these. In- 

16 227 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

variably the schaol system is glad to furnish a teacher 
and school supplies. The hitch comes with the necessity 
for warm clothing and special equipment, for reclining chairs, 
and simple food mornings and noon times. 

One of the many "first" open air schools is in Providence. 
The equipment was donated by women's clubs, and the 
tuberculosis society offered physical care. In Boston the 
Parker Hill School was started by the Tuberculosis Society, 
and a roof school in Franklin Park was the joint work of 
this agency, the Consumptives' Hospital, and the school 
board. The Educational Society in Manchester cam- 
paigned for an open air school which was maintained by 
popular subscription after the equipment had been donated 
by a manufacturing firm. In Philadelphia the first public 
open air school was on the roof of the College Settlement, 
the result of the cooperation of Phipps's Institute, the 
Settlement, and the board of education. Any possible help 
in starting and conducting schools has always been willingly 
given by state and national societies for the prevention 
of tuberculosis. Women's clubs and medical societies have 
been readily interested. 

In New York all the examining for the open air rooms 
now being used has been done by one volunteer physician. 
When it is decided that a new class shall be started in a 
certain school the teachers look over their children and 
pick out the two or three hundred who they think most 
need this treatment. From these the physician selects some 
75 simply by their looks. A careful physical examination 
is made, and 20 are chosen with predisposition to tuber- 
culosis or in serious anemic condition. The Charity 
Organization Society supplies a visitor to record home con- 
ditions of each child, and pays for the food supplied at the 
schools. 

Open air schools have had tremendous success. Children 

228 



HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 

receiving this treatment invariably gain in weight, and are 
generally considered to do better school work. How much 
of this advance is due to fresh air only, and how much is due 
to the extra food, has not been proved. The Committee on 
the Prevention of Tuberculosis in New York has under way 
tests to determine scientifically the connection between 
food, fresh air, and mental and physical progress. When 
concluded, these experiments will show how much children 
gain when they receive milk in the morning and afternoon 
and lunch at noon, milk alone, lunch alone, when they are 
kept out-of-doors without any food except their luncheons 
at home, and when they are indoors. Similar experiments 
are being made by the Elizabeth McCormick Memorial Fund 
in Chicago. 

Twenty anemic children can arouse more enthusiasm 
in a city than 10,000 not-quite-anemic children, who at the 
very same time are being made anemic or tubercular from 
poor ventilation in an ordinary school room. One hundred 
and fifty thousand dollars was spent on an elaborate pre- 
ventorium outside of New York, accommodating at one time 
172 of the thousands of children known to need preventive 
care. It looks sometimes as if the emphasis put on open air 
classes were making us all go backward. Are we forgetting 
the problem of fresh air for all because of our interest in 
a few children who need out-of-door work more vitally? 
The appeal for one society which cares for 25 children with 
bone tuberculosis voices the dramatic contrast, but misses 
the moral: ''These children are being cured. One has only 
to visit the class and see the routine carried out and notice 
their bright eyes and the healthy color in their cheeks, as 
they sit tucked in their steamer chairs in the bracing air 
and sunshine; and compare these with the pale faces and 
weary attitudes of teachers (17,000) and children (700,000) 
in hot, stuffy school rooms to realize the success of our 

229 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

work." What a convincing argument for good ventilation 
in all schools this open air school might be! 

Here is an opportunity for individual physicians interested 
in tuberculosis to emphasize by volunteer service with 
anemic children the necessity for adequate, thorough 
physical examination of all children, for healthful school 
conditions for all children, as well as special provision for 
every anemic child. No work for open air schools is of 
any permanent value until it has been so administered and 
developed that it can logically be taken over by the board 
of education. This means budget changes. It means that 
school commissioners must be persuaded to include an ap- 
propriation for open air schools in the new budget estimate. 
It means that the town must know what the open air schools 
have been doing under outside management and what they 
should be equipped to do under the city. It is necessary, 
therefore, that those interested in the open air schools 
should outline 100% of the fresh air needs of children, both 
normal and anemic. They should be able to say that 50 or 
500 children need this special treatment, that all other chil- 
dren do not need this special treatment, but do decidedly 
need the principle of fresh air applied to their school en- 
vironment. 

The Crippled Child's Friend 

Who would have thought twenty years ago that the crip- 
pled child could attend regular public school classes, take cal- 
isthenics, and form part of the school life, while at the same 
time gaining health by adequate medical or surgical atten- 
tion and changed conditions at home? Yet all this has come 
about, and largely through the continuous interest of out- 
side agencies. Guilds for crippled children have realized 
that their purpose is to make available for the handicapped 
child the school privileges that normal children take so 

230 



HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 

matter-of-factly, to take the place of sound legs and straight 
backs where possible, by providing a comfortable means of 
transportation to the school, thus putting the child in touch 
with all the varied school activities. Any day in New 
York you will see, driving to or from school, one of the 
busses of the Association for the Aid of Crippled Children 
filled with boys and girls, their faces pressed to the windows. 
Each load is in charge of a trained nurse and a carrying boy 
to lift down stairs the children who are helpless. Once in 
the school building, however, the crippled child may be the 
intellectual peer of all. The Association pays special at- 
tention to the home conditions that their charges must be 
taken back to after the day's work at school. To mothers 
is explained the child's need for care and nourishing food. 
If relief is necessary, the Association puts the family in touch 
with the organized charities, while furnishing from its own 
funds the lunches and middle-of-the-morning bread and milk 
at school. Through her home visiting the nurse is often able 
to persuade parents that a trip to see the orthopedic phy- 
sician at the hospital is the best thing for the child. Thus 
parents who have often felt nothing but the burden of a 
crippled or deformed child are made to think more kindly 
of him through the interest and sympathy of these outside 
visitors, whose close connection with the school keeps them 
from being interlopers. 

The problem of the crippled child, though it touches only 
a small percentage of children, offers exceptional oppor- 
tunities for cooperation. There is a chance for orthopedic 
physicians to see that free clinical treatment is accessible 
for such children and to make hospitals realize the advantages 
of telling schools what they are willing to do. There is a 
chance for relief agencies to secure special funds for crippled 
children's transportation, for lunches and home visiting. 
It has been proved in several cities that at little extra cost 

231 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

the school work can be reconstructed to suit deformed 
children. Some cities are paying also for the transportation. 

Any individual or agency which undertakes to help 
crippled children, no matter how few of them, should not 
consider its work well done until every other agency and 
every interest available for helping is alive to the needs 
of all crippled children. Yet how much easier it is to be 
satisfied with the 20 or 30 children actually under our care, 
with the one open air boat load, the one school room full, 
and to feel that by caring for these few our work is done! 
The volunteer worker, who sees that the same interest which 
helps through a church society or a small guild, one-third, 
say, of the crippled children in a city might be getting similar 
benefits for all such children, will recognize that ultimately 
the supplementary work of an outside agency must become 
part of the school system. If the crippled child's friend is 
doing only what a relief agency is supposed to be doing, 
the existing relief agencies should be made to realize that 
their work is thus far incomplete. 

Those who have offered themselves to this service find a 
miniature world of cooperation about one type of un- 
fortunate child. They must consider vocational training 
and placement. They must, as far as science, education, 
and philanthropy can do it, make normal the child who 
would otherwise be simply an unproductive tax on family 
and society. And the child who escapes such care, who is 
not permitted to benefit by the services of the crippled 
child's friend, is a living memorial to inefficient cooperation. 

Hygiene Teaching, Social and Physical 

Our school courses in hygiene are generally admitted to 

be "preachings," not "practisings." There is talk of fresh 

air, but our schools are poorly ventilated* The beauty of 

232 



HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 

personal cleanliness is explained, and dirty children are tol- 
erated. The bones of the body are studied while adenoids 
and defective vision go unchallenged. Teachers are teaching 
hygiene without applying it to themselves or their pupils. 
Ancient and out-of-date textbooks are still in use. 

Scientific temperance instruction is required by law in 
practically every state, though the Women's Christian 
Temperance Union has no way of telling what teachers are 
doing with this section of the hygiene curriculum. The 
Anti-Cigarette League, by forming school leagues and corre- 
lating truancy, retardation, and cigarette smoking, is trying 
to reach teachers and school children. And yet only recently 
have physicians and physical directors in schools convinced 
school officials that hygiene teaching without hygiene living 
in and out of schools makes book learning and the efforts 
of interested outside agencies practically futile. 

"It is a sinister fact that most of the teaching of hygiene 
in our schools is a farce," wrote Dr. C. Ward Crampton, 
director of physical training in the New York schools, where 
a program has been evolved for practical hygiene with in- 
structions to teachers as to how light may be best arranged, 
desks adjusted, temperature and ventilation kept normal, 
and rest periods regulated. Instruction in hygiene, accord- 
ing to Dr. Crampton's plan, should begin when children are 
very young with stories embodying fundamental rules. The 
practice comes by making children study, play, and work 
in the right way. Hygiene maxims are used as writing 
exercises and as slogans for the home. A typical program 
for the day starts: 

1. Rise as soon as awake. Air the bed clothes. 

2. Breathing and setting up exercises suitable to the grade. 

3. Washing and attention to the teeth, 

4. Dressing and care of clothing. 

5. Prepare for breakfast by a breath of fresh outside air, etc., etc. 

233 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

When once hygiene is "inehided in the cmricuhini," out- 
siders apparently consider it beyond their power to supervise, 
watch, and suggest, no matter how niadequate that teaching 
may be. There threatens to be a broad contrast between 
interest now given to hygiene, to normal health, and daily 
practical living, and the interest centered in the absorbing 
question of social or sex hygiene. The educational com- 
mittee of the General Federation of Women's Clubs and the 
committee on school health of the Department of School 
Patrons of the National Educational Association, tlu'ough 
Mrs. IVIaggie W. Barry, Sherman, Texas, are calling to the 
attention of women's clubs, teachers, state universities, and 
normal schools, the essentials of both personal and sex 
hygiene, the necessity for social hj^giene committees and 
talks to teachers and children by doctors and trained nurses. 
Questionnaires and suggestions, widely circulated to state 
and local club presidents, emphasize the need for adequate 
hygiene instruction, coupled with the need for adequate 
ventilation and cleaning, and for medical examination of all 
students in normal schools. Each state club officer is asked 
to report what is done, so that suggestions from the good 
work may be passed on to other agencies. 

Many agencies are talking, writing, and reading deeply 
on the question of sex hygiene instruction. Unless sex 
hygiene instruction is to be treated as only one ingredient 
in the fabric of health, less important than healthy bodies, 
healthy environment, and the daily practical living of healthy 
normal lives, its fascination may mean danger. Besides, 
no two authorities agree about how sex hygiene should be 
taught. Some say familiarity with botany and biology from 
childhood will best tell the story. The fear argument is 
approved by some promoters, refuted by others. As eminent 
an authority as Dr. Richard Cabot, of Boston, holds that 
class instruction in sex hygiene in any way is inadvisable, 

234 



HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 

and emphasizes his behef that the personal influence of 
teachers, parents, and athletic directors on individual chil- 
dren, the ''consecration of affection" alone, will solve this 
difficult problem. There is now a Federation for Sex Hygiene, 
105 West Fortieth Street, New York, which supplies lec- 
turers, bulletins, and bibliographies for parents' gatherings 
and women's clubs. 

A Substitute for Sex Hygiene Instruction 

Emphasizing for girls health first, and then recreation, 
general happiness, and Vv^ell being, tne pioneer work of one 
woman, supported by the Mothers' Congress in Denver, 
is showing how the dangerous subjects of sex eventually 
come up naturally and logically as questions to be answered 
in every girl's mind. Mrs. Anna Noble had training as 
kindergartner and teacher of kindergartners. She started 
with groups of girls over twelve years of age in the seventh 
and eighth grades of the public schools. They meet evenings 
by special permission in the kindergarten room or assembly 
hall of their schools. These parties are more like club 
gatherings than classes. The girls play games, go on picnics 
into the country, play basket ball, do folk dancing, or listen 
to Mrs. Noble and some women physicians, who tell them 
about their bodies and the laws of general hygiene. 

Inevitably the questions of sex ethics come up, but in 
relation to individual problems in the girls' home life, the 
sort of men that nice girls do and do not know, the safe- 
guards of conventions, the ideals and standard of morals 
that they are going to live by the rest of their lives. 

Through the constant contact in a normal way with girls 
from 12 to 19 years of age, as questions came up Mrs. Noble 
had the opportunity for great personal influence. Realizing 
that if the system depended entirely on the worker's per- 

235 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

sonality it could never be used generally in the schools, 
Mrs. Noble tried and succeeded in making the group- 
recreation-health-society idea stand on its own merits. "I 
am making the girls learn how to amuse and teach them- 
selves. They are so eager for suggestions and so quick to 
see opportunities." 

A flood of requests poured in to Mrs. Noble for new circles. 
More and more were formed. A volunteer from the kinder- 
garten school followed Mrs. Noble to Denver to help out. 
At last it was perfectly clear that this work was school work, 
and Mrs. Noble was given an office in one of the high schools, 
where she is available for consultation by girls and parents. 
Her position is unique, but she is meeting an evident need. 
Girls come with notes from their mothers asking her to talk 
to them. From eight-thirty in the morning until five, Mrs. 
Noble gives to various groups of fifteen a series of talks on 
personal hygiene, social ethics, vocation choosing, professions 
for girls, and the care of children. 

The circles are going on just the same, reaching over 500 
girls. In the summer time, when most of them are at work in 
shop or household, the meetings mean picnics once a week, 
with outdoor games and long walks in the country. Mixed 
dancing parties have been tried with unfailing success. 
Mothers are chaperons, and the girls are severe judges 
of their men friends in the light of Mrs. Noble's standards. 
Girls are demanding it, and mothers, even the poorer 
foreign ones, are realizing what safe recreation means to 
their children and what the mother's place is in the life of 
girls at this age. Mrs. Noble is not establishing an unnatural 
relation. She is simply being an efficient friend to all these 
girls. 

This work has had the unswerving support of the Mothers' 
Congress, and so important does it seem that many Col- 
orado women are looking forward to the day when Mrs. 

236 



HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 

Noble will be able to send out a hundred disciples equipped 
to teach right living to school girls in other cities, and to 
show teachers how to accomplish the same result. When a 
member of the school board objected to Mrs. Noble's work 
as unscientific, the physicians of Denver came forward 
promptly with a hearty indorsement of it. 

Health Day in Schools 

When a group of one hundred women starts out to fight 
for health, they employ ingenuity and variety in attacking 
manceuvers. The Century Club of Chillicothe is booming 
health by every means known to women, starting by a 
general cleaning of the whole town. Each year a "health 
day" in all public and parochial schools enlists the children. 
The club arranges for speakers in every room, '^30 or 40 
citizens, women, doctors, lawyers, commercial men, all 
giving the time cheerfully, and enjoying it, too." Plain, 
easily understood rules of health and little bulletins about 
''How to keep well," in bright red printing on stiff white 
cardboard, go into the hands of 3,000 school children at 
the celebration. In every school room in the city are hung 
large cards with rules such as ''Always wash your hands 
before eating," "Do not hold money, pencils, or pins in 
your mouth," "Eat slowly, chew thoroughly." 

You can see what good copy all this makes for the news- 
papers, which are "very generous in supporting these move- 
ments." The work is undertaken jointly with the Anti- 
Tuberculosis Society, and both agencies bring pressure on 
the board of education for needed sanitary improvements. 
The actual day in the schools last year was preceded by a 
"health week," when every morning something about health 
was put in the newspapers. "The first day it was a general 
suggestion to get busy and clean up. Tuesday we had some 

237 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

verses printed that the children were to bring on the 28th 
day of April; another day there was an article on typhoid 
fever and the fly ; another, the prevention and care of tuber- 
culosis and some health rules." 

This year, to encourage healthful and clean outdoor 
occupation for children, a local hardware merchant is going 
to distribute packages of lettuce and radish seeds for all 
the children. In addition to having fly posters on the walls, 
the children are to write compositions on the fly; prizes for 
the best ones in each room are "fiy swatters" tied with gay 
ribbons. 

How ingenious women are in their campaign is well shown 
by the story for 1912: 

Our plans for health day, which precedes tuberculosis Sunday, are 
about as they have been for the past two years, as to having speakers 
for the various buildings. One quotation for the blackboard is: "Go, 
make thy garden as fair as thou canst. Thou workest never alone. Per- 
chance, he whose plot is next to thine will see it and mend his own." 
Then we have a homemade sort of acrostic, and some of the teachers 
have the initial letter on cardboard and fixed to hang about the neck 
a sort of chest protector; the first child goes to the platform and recites 
the line beginning with his letter, then the second; then when all are in 
a row, they say it together: 

H — elp to make our city clean, 

E — very boy and girl we mean, 

A — 11 can lend a helping hand, 

L — et us form a Cleaning Band. 

T— akefor 1912 the cry: 

H — elp to clean and "Swat the fly!" 

The health alphabet printed on cards, one for each child, 
is: 

A is for Adenoids, which no child should own, 
B for right Breathing, to give the lungs tone. 
C is for Cough, which we should not neglect. 
D is for Dentist, who finds tooth defect. 
238 



HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 

E is for Evil, of foul air and dirt. 

F is for Fresh air — too much cannot hurt, 

G is for Gardens, where boys and girls play. 

H is for Hardiness gained in that way. 

I is Infection from foul drinking cups. 

J is for Joy in the bubbUng taps. 

K is for Knowledge of rules of good health. 

L is for Lungs, where soundness is wealth. 

M is for Milk, it must be quite pure. 

N is for Nurses, your health to insure. 

O is for Oxygen, not found in a crowd. 

P is for PencUs — in mouth not allowed. 

Q is for Quiet, which sick people need. 

R is for Rest — as part of our creed. 

S is for Sunshine, to drive germs away. 

T is for Toothbrush, used three times a day. 

U is for Useful health rules in the schools. 

V is for Value of learning these rides. 
W is Worry, which always does harm. 
X is 'Xcess — indulge in no form. 

Y is for Youth, the time to grow strong. 
Z is for Zest. Help the good work along. 

As a scheme for calling the town's attention to general 
health rules the "health day" works splendidly, forming 
the basis for more decided and significant cooperation by 
outsiders along health lines. There are jingles like the fol- 
lowing, from Dr. Allen's Alice in Health Land, which chil- 
dren can learn and recite: 

Mary had a little cold, 

It started in her head, 
And everywhere that Mary went 

That cold was sure to spread. 

She took it into school one day, 

There wasn't any rule, 
It made the children cough and sneeze 

To have that cold in school. 
239 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

The teacher tried to drive it out, 

She tried hard, but — kerchoo! 
It didn't do a bit of good, 

'Cause teacher caught it, too. 

Health wisdom, sugar-coated but effective, may thus be 
distributed to thousands of homes. Such jingles stick in 
your mind. Teachers can make hygiene instruction more 
vivid by them. A woman's club might offer a prize for the 
best jingle written by a pupil in each grade. 

Publicity for School Health 

It is very sensible and very lucky that outside organiza- 
tions feel the need for professional guidance when entering 
the field of medicine and health, because a balance of benefits 
from lay and professional cooperation shows that neither 
can get along without the other. Perhaps the most illu- 
minating example of all-round, efficient cooperation is being 
given by Mr. Rockefeller's "Hookworm Commission" in 
the south. By working directly with county and city 
superintendents and boards of education, sanitary toilets 
have been put in every school in the country, and physicians 
have been sent to all schools to give the hookworm test. 
School houses are used as clinics and distributing centers for 
medicine; teachers and pupils are taught to cooperate in 
making homes sanitary; the state laboratory helps in the 
tests; and state physicians give talks to women's clubs. The 
board of health sends out a bulletin with definite instruc- 
tions and advice, and keeps constantly in touch with the 
press. By using all the existing official and volunteer 
agencies, the commission is able to reach practically every 
person who needs attention, and to focus other agencies' 
attention on preventive work. 

240 



HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 

In securing publicity for school health, lectures given in 
schools by physicians to parent-teacher associations or other 
organizations disseminate information and arouse public 
interest. Dr. Paquin's work in Asheville is an illustration 
of propaganda. He gave lectures to teachers, pupils, and 
parents at his own expense, reproducing the stereopticon 
photographs of the International Congress on Tuberculosis, 
and numerous illustrations of private and public health, 
open air life, and sanitary domestic construction. In Can- 
ton one physician who sees health problems is giving lec- 
tures to county school officers. In another western city 
physicians lecture regularly in the schools to children and 
their parents on tuberculosis and communicable diseases. 
From Paducah a physician writes: ''Our schools have not 
taken up medical inspection for transmissible diseases or 
dental examination yet. I am doing all in my power to 
get them to take it up by lecturing to the schools and 
teachers, all departments of women's clubs, and from time 
to time writing articles in our daily papers, everywhere meet- 
ing with a great deal of encouragement." In South Bend 
physicians have given talks on tuberculosis to pupils in 
schools under the auspices of the local Anti-Tuberculosis 
League. Each talk does twice as much good if adequately 
reported next morning in the papers. 

So much has been written in the newspapers about medical 
inspection that there is plenty of material to be served by 
physicians in palatable form to their cities. By subscribing 
for one month to a press clipping bureau for press notices 
about medical and dental inspection in public schools you 
will receive enough details to make any number of inter- 
esting newspaper stories. The medical inspector of a small 
southern city writes, "I believe an immense amount of good 
could be accomplished by reaching the public through the 
local newspapers, although I have never tried them." In 

241 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

the same letter he deplores the shj^iht assistance ofTered by 
physicians and dentists to his work as a vohmteer. 

All state boards of healtli and most city departments issue 
monthly or quarterly bulletins. They can be persuaded 
to devote one month's publication to school health. For 
example, the London County Council recently distributed 
a pamphlet to 5,000 families in London, entitled Health 
Hints to Parents. On the title page are listed: "No schol- 
arships for dirty children; As good as five shillings a week 
for life; All sore throats in chihlren are suspicious; Windows 
are made to open; Shut your mouth and save your life." 
The Council "is determined that no child sliall sutYer from 
going to school. There is nothing worse for a clean child 
than to be brought into contact with a tlirty child. The 
Council intends to protect the clean child." The leaflet 
emphasizes cleanliness, gives information as to what to do 
with children suiTering from connnunicable diseases, out- 
lines symptoms of eye, ear, and throat trouble, and asks 
parents to keep this information where it may be had 
when wanted. The Washington ]Monday Evening Club 
issued a leaflet of Practical Adrice to Parents, after dis- 
covering that a large percentage of children in school were 
suftering from physieal defects. The pamphlet urges parents 
to have their chiUlren examined at once by a physician. 
Suggestions as to diet and care of the health j^ child ai'e 
given, with tables for average normal height and weight. 

While it has been found that preliminary inspection, a 
certain amount of publicity, and the continuous interest of a 
medical society, laj' organization, or a few physicians, will 
enable the boai'd of education to appropriate money for 
adequate health supervision, it is generally felt that a com- 
pulsory, or at least a permissive law is a distinct asset. A 
physician in Kenosha writes that "state authority would 
be an advantage." WTiere medical inspection is made only 

242 



HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 

permissible or optional it requires a little more energy on 
the part of those interested to get something actually done. 
Compulsory laws here are as justifiable as are compulsory 
education laws, and necessary for similar reasons. Even 
securing legislation for school healthi requires the constant 
care and interest of somebody. In Wisconsin, because of 
the successful lobbying of the National League for Medical 
Freedom, a bill was drawn exempting any child from being 
examined for physical defects upon the parents' objection. 
In carrying on legislative campaigns physicians have found 
it of great value to have cooperating women's organizations 
and representative business men do publicity work with 
legislators and the public, distribute circulars, write letters 
to senators, get up meetings, report meetings to the press, 
study local conditions, and present facts about local health 
needs. 

National Associations for School Health 

The American Medical Association has a Public Health 
Education Committee, which WTjrks directly through clubs, 
settlements, and other organizations. Its program on gen- 
eral health topics includes the need for medical inspection 
in schools. In Colorado Springs, for instance, lectures were 
given before the school, before parents' meetings, in school 
buildings, at high schools, and to dental and medical so- 
cieties. In Indianapolis addresses on children's health were 
given to mothers' meetings in the kindergartens. The state 
branches of the committee are working with groups of 
nurses, with medical societies, and teachers' associations. 
Throughout Missouri each woman's club has been asked to 
have a public school health day, churches have been inter- 
ested, and newspapers, in securing publicity. In Tennessee 
lectures on health were given by graphophone records when 
physicians were unavailable. 

17 243 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

The National Association for the Prevention of Tuber- 
culosis has emphasized at its meetings the need for medical 
inspection and open air schools. While the national organ- 
ization has taken up no local work, its influence is exerted 
through state and local agencies. Tuberculosis committees 
exhibit charts and pictures among schools and send lecturers 
to tell how children may help fight the white plague. A 
little textbook on What You Should Know about Tuber- 
culosis has been put into New York's schools by the 
Committee on Tuberculosis, 105 East Twenty-second 
Street. The Russell Sage Foundation has a division of child 
hygiene, Dr. Luther P. Oulick, Director, 1 Madison Avenue, 
New York, which publishes constantly comparative, sug- 
gestive studies of school health. 

The American School Hygiene Association meets once a 
year to discuss problems of school sanitation and health. 
In 1909 resolutions were passed that all training schools 
for teachers should give instruction in personal and school 
hygiene and in the principles and practice of physical train- 
ing. The program usually includes topics like "The place 
of the crippled child in the public school system"; "School 
hygiene and efficiency"; "The health of school teachers"; 
"The school and the germ carrier"; "The relation of physical 
defects to retardation"; "Athletics on a hygienic basis." 

The American Medical Association has appointed, through 
its section on preventive medicine and public health, a com- 
mittee to confer with a similar committee of the National 
Education Association "for a broad investigation of health 
conditions which prevail among children in large cities and 
the adolescent ailments which have a direct bearing on 
education." This investigation will include, further, the 
more active cooperation of boards of education and depart- 
ments of health in reducing child delinquency and crime. 

Unique and unexcelled in efficiency has been the League 

244 



HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 

for Medical Freedom; but, alas! to most of us it seems on 
the wrong side of the fence. This organization circulates 
throughout the country pamphlets, bulletins, letters, wher- 
ever any start is made to secure medical inspection or free 
treatment of school children. Its procedure is almost super- 
natural; its means of securing information as to who is 
leading movements for medical inspection, its efficiency, its 
way of working with the whole of the problem, and its 
logical, intelligent method of handling material, are all 
much to be admired. The League supposedly represents 
Christian Scientists and anti-American Medical Association 
agitators. It apparently has unlimited means for supporting 
its thirteen branches and paid secretaries in the field. It 
is working through school boards wherever medical inspec- 
tion is under discussion, and because of its aggressiveness and 
its thoroughness it is altogether too successful. While it is 
unfortunate that school health must be harmed by a con- 
troversy between the American Medical Association and 
the National League for Medical Freedom, it is perhaps 
significant that these people whom many of us consider 
misguided and almost criminal are working with such an 
efficient method that we, supposedly fighting for the right, 
find ourselves balked and sometimes defeated. Those who 
believe that their children will catch scarlet fever if they sit 
next to a Christian Scientist's child who has scarlet fever 
must play the game equally effectively, must build large 
and indestructible foundations of public understanding, 
interest, and belief. In time, when the American Medi- 
cal Association shall mean not a group of physicians, but 
40,000,000 parents, club women, social workers, ministers, 
and editors, a controversy will become a campaign. 

The chief reason that national and large local groups of 
physicians interested in school health have not been more 
effective is that they have not yet appreciated the value 

245 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

of lay cooperation. Does any national committee of phy- 
sicians realize that by ''furnishing oil" for the national 
women's clubs they would reach effectively practically every 
city and town in the country, while at the same time inter- 
esting 800,000 women in their problem? The organization 
of women's clubs, and through them of parents and teachers, 
is a fine and intimate network touching the school in many 
ways. These clubs have no money for propaganda, but they 
have the ears of their fellow citizens. It would take but a 
little capital and a few definite suggestions as to just ex- 
actly how women's clubs can help, to enliven for action all 
the threads in the network. Tuberculosis committees are 
beginning to realize, and dentists more slowly, the advan- 
tages of getting lay bodies of women and business men to 
fight their battles for them. 



X 

THE dentist's MESSAGE 

How Awake Are We Dentally ? 

THE increasing attention paid to teeth by the general 
pubHc has a direct bearing on pubHc schools. Hardly 
a day passes that there are not notices in some newspaper 
about a new dental clinic or an offer of dentists to do volun- 
teer work. Dr. Osier's saying has become a slogan for the 
dental campaign, ''If I were asked to say whether more 
physical deterioration was produced by alcohol or by de- 
fective teeth, I should unhesitatingly say by defective teeth." 
Young as is the dental crusade, a book might be written 
on the work already done in schools alone. There is still, 
however, a big gap where citizens and professional men have 
not felt the dental awakening. In 199 out of 315 cities — and 
some of them are proud of their progressive, up-to-date 
reputations — the superintendent, who would surely know 
if any dental work were being done in the schools, has not 
mentioned to us the interest of citizens along this line. 
Many superintendents wrote that dental inspection and 
treatment were among the most urgent needs in their schools. 
The answers from physicians and dentists named by these 
superintendents tell as many stories of lack of interest as of 
cooperation given. "They are doing nothing; the dentists 
refuse most arrogantly to consider a clinic." In estimating 
the number of dental clinics that this country must have in 

247 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

order to take care of school children, it has been computed 
that for 20,000,000 school children 15,000 clinics are needed, 
aside from private treatment, which means that ''until we 
have caught up with the need, 30,000 dentists giving half 
days, or 15,000 dentists giving full time for indigent children 
only," are necessary. Against this, as a denominator. Dr. 
Allen contrasts the 100 clinics — perhaps not so many — that 
have won notoriety through press and dental journals. 
Women's clubs in only 30 out of 125 cities have considered 
the question of dental inspection, and in nine cities, of free 
treatment. This means that in 95 of those cities the women 
have not been interested even to the point of indefinite 
"agitating." (Fig. 6.) 

The criticism that it is paternalistic will not stop the dental 
campaign. Nor does having a well-to-do father insure a 
child against defective teeth. Investigations have shown 
that a considerable percentage of pupils who need treatment 
badly are from homes anything but ''poor." School in- 
spection is simply to force parents by public opinion to do 
their own paternalizing and at the same time make it pos- 
sible for children whose parents cannot pay to receive 
skilled attention. 

Teachers have supported dental care by connecting sound 
teeth with classroom progress and retardation. In Cleve- 
land, after a preliminary examination had showed that 
97% of the children needed attention, and that 50% of 
school children's illnesses could be eliminated by proper 
care, an experiment was made with 40 children receiving 
dental treatment. Wlien tested psychologically for memory 
and quickness of perception, they showed an increased power 
of application and work. The details of this experiment are 
given by Dr. Ebersole in the August, 1911, number of Oral 
Hygiene. Is it not reasonable to expect a child to do better 
work and make quicker progress with a sound, healthy jaw, 

248 




Fig. 6 

HOW MANY MORE DO NEW YORK's SCHOOL CHILDREN NEED ? 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

no nagging pain, clean digestive operations, and a mouth 
aesthetically one to be proud of? 



Origins of Dental Inspection 

The superintendent of schools in Reading asked the 
Reading Dental Society to show how many children were 
in need of dental care. The Society drew up a blank on 
which the exact state of each mouth was registered and sent 
a duplicate to the parents. In the 8,925 mouths examined 
of children from 5 to 17 years of age were found some 
58,759 defects, including 28,548 cavities in permanent teeth 
and 14,707 in temporary teeth. This is an average of about 
five cavities per child. Only one-half of these children used 
a toothbrush, and only one-seventh had had previous care. 
To meet this crj'ing need for attention a citizen and the 
Dental Society have established a free dispensary open 
five afternoons a week. Each practising dentist in rotation 
volunteers a half-day, and each man's turn comes about 
every 30 days. Children apply for treatment to school 
teachers. Each applicant is looked up by the Associated 
Charities, and if considered a worthy case is given an ap- 
pointment. Teachers have received a circular containing 
important dental truths to be passed on to their children; 
lecturers have spoken to the Teachers' Institute; letters \ 
and newspaper articles have sustained public interest through j 
the local press. In Muskegon the superintendent sug- 
gested that dentists make the following proposition to the 
school board : ' ' You furnish and equip a room in any school 
building, pay supply bills, and the Muskegon Dental So- 
ciety will donate one day's work a week." The board ac- 
cepted, and an up-to-date clinic was started. Children were 
sent by the truant officer for treatment, and after only a 

250 



THE DENTIST'S MESSAGE 

seven weeks' experiment the teachers were reporting re- 
markable changes in former backward students. 

These stories show what may happen when the right idea 
is put into the heads of the right people. It has been proved 
that anybody may start a-rolling a ball of dental interest 
that will stop only when the town can boast of spotless 
teeth. In some cases the preliminary agitation, the neces- 
sary bringing together of school and dentists, has been done 
successfully by women's clubs. With the aid of the Anti- 
Tuberculosis Society, the Century Club in Chillicothe has 
interested the local dental society in making free inspections 
and treating free all indigent children. Materials and tooth 
brushes are supplied to the boys and girls sent by the school 
nurse. 

The initial move has been taken in other places by a 
dental society. In Covington the dental association decided 
to prove at its own expense to the board of education that 
dental treatment for children who could not afford to get it 
privately was a good investment for the city. 

Almost without exception school work has been done at 
the start by dentists working without pay. There are few 
groups of professional men who have given more free atten- 
tion to those who need it most — the children, poor and rich. 
Whenever 20 children needing treatment are lined up, there 
is usually only one response — an offer of volunteer service. 
An interesting arrangement exists in Louisville, where once 
a year the local dental association, with the health department 
physicians, inspects all school children. In another city 
the dentists themselves suggested that the board furnish a 
clinic in the high school building that they might give each 
week in rotation an hour or two of their time, charging only 
for material used. 

Whether the starter is professional or lay, a group or an 
individual, there are three centers of influence to be con- 

251 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

quered — the superintendent of schools, the leading dental 
society, and the most energetic lay organization. Through 
the first you have control of principals, teachers, pupils, and 
their parents; through the second, of individual dentists, 
small groups and larger, important county or state organiza- 
tions; through the third, of mothers' clubs, women's clubs, 
charity organizations, public education associations, and 
groups of business men and ministers. And the press is 
always eager for good stories. 

From the experience of many communities there are certain 
good moves advisable anywhere: 

Dental hygiene exhibit 

Talks at school and parents' meetings 

Newspaper stories about dental work in other cities 

Volunteer committee of dentists to make preliminary survey of one 
school 

Publicity of results 

Program outlined for dental clinics and inspection 

Support of lay organizations for board of education's requests for ap- 
propriation 

Combination of dental and lay organizations to secure a compulsory law 

Clinics for Free Treatment 

The logical home for dental work for school children is 
the school. To have treatments demanded as part of the 
school routine robs them of half their horror. A dental out- 
fit, proudly mentioned by one superintendent as ''our own 
dental chair," will eventually be a part of every school's 
equipment. One dentist writes in the Survey that "dentists 
expect the movement to grow until free clinics are main- 
tained as part either of the health department or of the 
public school system in every municipality." 

The Children's Aid Society in New York has proved that 
a clinic in a school can be kept busy by one district alone. 

252 



THE DENTIST'S MESSAGE 

When the clinic was first opened as a result of the interest 
of one of New York's busiest dentists, Dr. Arthur E. Merritt, 
children from private and parochial schools in all parts of 
the city came rushing for treatment. Each year the teeth 
of all the pupils in the Society's schools are put in order 
by volunteer dentists, and any extra time is given to public 
school children of the neighborhood. 

Figures such as these (3,960 operations in 1911) convey but an inade- 
quate idea of what was actually accompUshed, of the hundreds of children 
who found rehef from pain; of many more whose attendance at school 
would have been impossible but for such treatment; the carrying into 
the tenement homes of those children the lessons learned concerning the 
importance of clean mouths and sound teeth, and in countless ways 
preaching the gospel of mouth hygiene and its relation to the health 
and efficiency of the school child. 

For a complete story of the Children's Aid work send for 
Oral Hygiene (December, 1911), Indianapolis. 

Though a little more convenient in schools, clinics are 
serviceable when located in public buildings or settlements. 
The Denver County Dental Society, while working for 
compulsory dental inspection, has opened a clinic in one of 
the poorer sections. Here, in a room newly painted white 
and fitted with scientific equipment, the dental society, 
as the guest of a settlement, will treat free all children who 
are sent from schools or otherwise referred. The dentists 
say they would have been unable to do the work but for 
the settlement's offer of a room. 

As a means for getting treatments done that need to be 
done, the dental college is valuable. From a southern city 
where medical attention is given to children by the board of 
education comes the message: ''The dental college of the 
city has kindly agreed to treat free of charge all children 
requiring dental work. This is being carried out in a very 
satisfactory manner." Two years ago in Louisville it was 

253 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

proposed to use the senior class of the dental college as 
school inspectors, and to give free treatments in the college 
infirmary. In order to begin dental work for schools in 
New Orleans, the dean of the dental department of Tulane 
University offered the school board the services of his 
faculty and student body. 

The responsiveness of dentists to the need for volunteer 
work is praiseworthy. But like most volunteers they grow 
weary, and their attendance is usually intermittent and un- 
certain. It is naturally not to be expected that dentists, 
when their point is proved, should keep on forever working 
for nothing. A story is told by a woman dentist who trav- 
eled half across the continent in order to see a famous 
volunteer clinic in the east. The afternoon of her visit she 
discovered rows of children waiting patiently with their 
cards of appointment. She waited also until half the sched- 
uled office hours had passed, and when none of the much- 
praised dentists appeared, she took off her coat, pitched in 
and did the work. As Dr. Merritt has written of volunteer 
service : 

Unfortunately, the work is one which possesses little that is of clinical 
interest to those engaged in it ; and since all work of this nature depends 
for its existence upon mutual benefit to the participants, it will be found 
impossible to continue these clinics indefinitely if they are to depend 
upon volunteer service. At a comparatively small salary capable young 
men recently graduated could be employed who would devote each 
afternoon of the school year to the work. One such should be placed 
in each school. This, supplemented by the services of the volunteer 
staff, would add appreciably to the value of the work. Some such plan 
will have to be considered, if ever the work is to be carried to a successful 
issue. 

In its clinic at the city hall Philadelphia has gone be- 
yond the volunteer stage, as a recent newspaper article 
tells us: 

254 



THE DENTIST'S MESSAGE 

Those children whose teeth need attention and whose parents cannot 
have them looked after properly by a private dentist are at liberty to 
send them there and have their mouths made right. 

Any child sufferuig with its teeth attracts the attention of the teacher. 
The teacher calls in the school nurse. The school nurse makes an 
examination and, where necessary, calls in the district dentist; and the 
district dentist makes a chart of the child's mouth, wdth a memorandum 
of what it needs. It is then up to the parent. 

The parent, getting this chart and seeing what is required, must decide 
either to send the youngster to a private dentist at his own expense or 
to send him to the dental clinic at the city hall. At the city hall den- 
tists of the best skill and experience will give all children whose parents 
carmot afford to pay for it the best dental service and put their teeth 
in the best possible condition. 

After this is done the child is given a toothbrush and tooth powder 
and instructed how to take proper care of his teeth. 

Last year 2,561 children were treated and it is expected that the entire 
roster of the schools will be examined and reported upon this year. 

As satisfactory a clinic as one could want is the Free 
Dental Clinic for School Children in New York, an oasis 
of cleanliness in the midst of dirt. There is a little white 
waiting room, and a work room fitted with two dental 
chairs and the most up-to-date appliances. Upstairs is the 
extracting room, and it is so arranged that the waiting chil- 
dren do not see those who come out after treatments. 
There is no chance for tales of how it hurts. Here during 
1910-1911 some 8,300 treatments, filliags, extractions, and 
cleanings took place, and over 1,000 children went out 
with clean mouths and the knowledge of how to keep them 
clean. 

All this is the result of the conviction held persistently 
by Miss Marjorie Clarke, a health department nurse work- 
ing in the schools, that there is no use inspecting children 
and telling them they possess defective teeth without fm*- 
nishing the facilities for having their teeth remedied. If 
parents cannot afford to pay a private dentist — and about 

255 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

90% either cannot or do not see the need of it — what are 
the children to do? How can teachers do their duty by the 
children who are in actual pain from their m6uths? By 
these questions Miss Clarke interested a New York magis- 
trate and judge, who raised among his friends the funds 
necessary to open a clinic. The first year it cost $4,631.31, 
with Miss Clarke in charge and two paid dentists each day. 
Children are given definite appointments and expected to 
keep them. No case is discharged until completely finished, 
and a record of every treatment is carefully charted. After 
the first day children will not be treated unless faces and 
clothes are clean. Meanwhile Miss Clarke is visiting the 
homes in the neighborhood, seeing whether the children 
deserve free treatment and, where advisable, urging sanitary 
changes. Teachers are keeping a record of progress made 
by the children treated, and say that the clinic has already 
well proved its educational value. 

When Miss Clarke's dream comes true, and each school 
has its own dental clinic, every child at six years will enter 
school "whole," without adenoids or abnormal tonsils, 
with clean teeth and a clean body and eyes properly tested, 
"There ought to be a law compelling mothers to keep chil- 
dren clean and sound. If no dirty children were received 
at schools, mothers would wash them and have their defects 
remedied fast enough in order to get the children off their 
hands and keep them safe in school." 

Individual Interest 

Some of the most dramatic situations in the dental awak- 
ening are to be found when, isolated among his profession, 
with indifference in schools and in the public mind, one man 
fights bravely to educate his community in oral hygiene. 
In a small Pennsylvania town a dentist sent to school 

256 



THE DENTIST'S MESSAGE 

teachers and prominent citizens, at his own expense, 200 
copies of an address on dental hygiene. The other mem- 
bers of his profession have intimated that it is a ^'little 
advertising stunt, " and refused to meet him half way. In 
another city the dentists collectively refuse to consider a 
volunteer school clinic, and funds for a dentist are going 
to be raised by private subscription if the common council 
will equip a clinic. All this is agitated by a single physician, 
unsupported by a dental organization. 

Admitting the heroism of these individuals, it is almost 
safe to assume something is wrong, and that something is 
probably the method of working. These cases clearly 
show the disadvantages under which the isolated dentist 
is laboring. There are many things he cannot attempt 
which if done by a dental society would arouse no criticism, 
and there is little use for the interest of a single dentist if 
his findings go no further. Investigations "for my own 
information" are hardly fair when so much depends on 
passing the information along. 

Double opportunity, on the other hand, belongs to the 
dentist on the school board. Even where funds are lacking 
to start clinics the presence of an interested person in an 
authoritative position has a good effect on the community's 
thinking. In one city where the dentists were not organ- 
ized a dentist as a member of the board of education em- 
phasized the physical needs of the children. The organized 
charities of the city and the district nurse association came 
to his assistance with a school nurse who has been inspecting 
for dental defects as far as she is able, and where necessary 
reconamending dental care to parents. But the dentist on 
the board is not satisfied with this arrangement, though it 
is working effectively, and a dental clinic is planned for one 
of the school buildings which will take care of all children 
needing attention. 

257 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

Perhaps the most striking example of individual interest 
in children's dentistry is the Forsythe Dental Infirmary in 
Boston. In their tentative plans the trustees say that the 
memorial was given by the brothers Forsythe for two other 
brothers, and was incorporated in 1910 with an endowment 
of $1,000,000. The existence of the institution is due to the 
fact that ''thoughtful dentists and doctors had called the 
attention of Mr. James Bennet Forsythe, president of the 
Boston Belting Company, to the great need of public school 
children for dental care." The infirmary is to be devoted 
to the care of children's teeth and the practical teaching of 
oral hygiene. ''Just as the sanatoria for the cure of tuber- 
culosis have served as centers for the dissemination of wis- 
dom concerning personal hygiene by the example of teaching 
their patients, so it is expected that this institution will pro- 
mote public education in not only oral, but also general 
hygiene." A research laboratory and museum will be part 
of the institution. The staff is to be made up of a body of 
consulting dentists volunteering their services, and a per- 
manent staff selected for their ability. Assistants will be 
drawn from the authorized dental schools. 

The architect's plans include waiting room, sterilizing 
room, lecture rooms, laboratories, extracting and anesthesia 
rooms, recovery and consulting rooms, with special facilities 
for maintaining cleanliness and asepsis. There will be 64 
chairs, with accommodations for 44 more. Nothing will 
keep this infirmary from being a source of blessings to all 
children who will ever attend the common schools of Boston. 
The beneficiaries mount quickly into thousands and thou- 
sands. There is no way of measuring restored health, or 
increased working power throughout the lifetime of thou- 
sands of individuals. The most significant part of the in- 
firmary's mission, however, will be the impetus which will 
emanate from it to encourage dental societies, lay organ- 

258 



THE DENTIST'S MESSAGE 

izations, and schoolmen in securing dental inspection and 
treatment in their respective cities. 



Dental Societies^ Work for Schools 

The National Dental Society now stands for dental in- 
spection and for educative work with public school chil- 
dren through its permanent conamittee on oral hygiene, 
Dr. W. G. Ebersole, of Cleveland, chairman. Publications 
by state, county, and local associations also show how im- 
portant is the position now occupied by the public school 
in the minds of dentists. The societies that are active, the 
societies that talk like progressives, get into the papers. We 
read ten stories about what organized dentists are doing 
for school children, and we at once spread these ten instances 
imaginatively to cover the whole country, judging that every- 
where similar good work is being done. That this is not 
the case, the situation in any ten cities in your state will 
prove. Dental societies have only just begun to realize 
the opportunity before them. 

Not all the most progressive societies have come to see 
the desirability of a lay backing. What happened in Newark 
shows the advantage of having a strong lay organization 
thoroughly in sympathy with the campaign for dental exami- 
nation. The agitation for dental clinics there was started 
by a group of women and supported by them for two years. 
Volunteer dentists and nurses did the work, which was 
largely for school children. After much publicity an ap- 
propriation was granted by the city. The clinics were then 
organized under paid dentists at public expense. Many feel 
that their fate would have been different if the dentists had 
not received the unswerving support of the women. It 
undoubtedly made things easier to have the necessary pub- 
is 259 



HET.riXG SCHOOL C II I T. D K E N 

licity secured by an orgaiiization which could not be accused 
of seh"-advertisonient . 

For the SiVine reason absence o( lay (support may hinder 
dentists in their school cooperation. >sowhere has pre- 
liminary work been better planned or more etUciently carried 
through by dentists than in Saginaw, and yet the school 
children there are still without dental care. As told in the 
Dcutal Summary, the campaign began with meetings un- 
der the auspices of the board of e<.iucation, at which talks 
on oral hygiene were given to parents and school children. 
A committee of dentists was then appointed to make ar- 
rangements. Permission for an inspection was obtained 
from the school board and from priests in the parochial 
schools. The inspection was made one school a day, a sep- 
arate dentist for each room, and in a month all the data were 
collected. Pi'actically every child was inspected, and only 
25 of 3.2S0 mouths were found in perfect condition. The 
cavities averaged four to each child. After all this the board 
of education voted money for six medical inspectors, and the 
dentists were discouraged. An otYer of free clinics was 
looked on by some of the board as an attempt to gain prac- 
tice, and the whole matter dropped. There was defmite 
need here for a strong lay organization to utilize the good 
work done by dentists in awakening public opinion as to the 
necessity for dental care of children. 

In demanding budget increases with which to put school 
work on a permanent basis lay backing is especially neces- 
sary. 

PnhJicity about Dental Needs 

I believe our first work is to oduoato the dentist, the medioal man, 
the e^iuoator. and the public. Then later come the operative measures 
to correct the disease. The o^nn-ative work is so vast I think it is useless 
to attempt to stem it with treatment. Education in the case of the teeth 

2C0 



THE DENTIST'S MESSAGE 

could prevent 50% of Ujo trouble that is to come, and tliat, to my mind, 
is our work for the immediate future. 

Thus do derjtists realize that any campaign for education 
needs the support of the public press. One state association 
is bravely Issuing a series of 48 articles on the care of teeth, 
written to attract the layman and published in every news- 
paper in the state. Dental facts are still "news." The 
opening of a new clinic and the extent of its influence is 
good reading, and the press has shown itself willing over 
and over again to tell the story. In Portland, Maine, a 
group of dentists made an arrangement with an evening 
paper to give regular space for articles on oral hygiene. Dr. 
Ebersole cites cooperation with the public press as the most 
important first step for a dental society's educative work. 
The story of the Illinois Dental Association and its press 
campaign is told in Oral Hygiene, April and June, 1911. 

For any information about up-to-date methods of school 
cooperation write to Oral Hyrjiene, Indianapolis, and ask 
which numbers will help you most on the particular point in 
which you are interested. If Oral Hygiene does not tell you 
what you want to know, ask the Rochester Dental Society, 
606 Aitler Building, P^ochester, for the copies of the Dental 
Dispensary Record that deal with school work. 

To let parents and children, especially, understand the 
truth about teeth, systematic courses of lectures on oral 
hygiene have been given in schools for parents and children 
by committees of dental societies. Parents' clubs and 
women's organizations are glad to have made clear to them 
the relation of clean teeth, school progress, and retardation, 
and to learn how children's diseases may be avoided by 
dental care. The oral hygiene committee of the Ohio State 
Dental Society has published a little pamphlet. The 
Popular Oral Hygiene Lectures, based on the experiences 
of dentists in pul>lic schools. As supplements to talks on 

261 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

teeth, and as a popular means of propaganda, the Society 
plans a series of moving pictures from stories of what 
happens with good and bad care of teeth. 

But to interest the lay mind nothing is quite so impressive 
as the sight of what is actually happening to our teeth. A 
school exliibit is an excellent way to make children and 
parents think about what is going on inside by casts of 
teeth, pictures of mouths before and after treatment, and 
charts showing how many things can go wrong with one 
set of teetli. Permission is easily secured from the super- 
intendent or principal to put screens in assembly room 
or hallway. A lecturer is sometimes sent to explain the ex- 
hibit at the lunch hour, or after school, and to give special 
talks to teachers. Wlien an exhibit is held outside a school 
building, special arrangements are made with the super- 
intendent for children to visit it with their teachers. 
Such an exhibit, when free from the stigma of advertising, 
is welcomed by school officials, and may serve as a starter 
for a dental campaign. In Oral Hygiene for May, 1911, 
are detailed suggestions for enlarged photographs of conmion 
dental defects and for striking questions like: 

Tlierc arc 10,000,000 school children in tlie ITnitcd States suffering 
from direct effect of decaying teeth and unsanitaiy mouths. 
Is your child among them? 

In Rochester hundreds of public school children armed 
with toothbrushes seriously take part in an elaborate 
drill to music every morning. They have learned the 
meaning of each move, backward and forward, sidewise, 
up and down on upper and lower teeth ; and as naturally as 
if it were a gymnastic exercise, with the rhythm of the 
music to make it uniform, they go through the motions. 
Each child, poor and rich, owns a toothbrush, and a ques- 
tion of personal hygiene has here become one of school 

262 



THE DENTIST'S MESSAGE 

administration. The toothbrush drill has come to stay. 
It is being taken up in other cities, where toothbrushes are 
listed on the supply lists of schools. The effect on parents 
of making a school exercise from an act of which some are 
blissfully ignorant, and which others associate only with 
unpleasant home discipline, can be measured in after years 
when these children have proved what a help it is to growing 
boys and girls to have good, strong, white teeth. 

Do dentists volunteer free treatment for children in your city? 

How many mouths in your schools need attention? 

How much ill health, poor school work, wasted money can be charged 
to bad teeth? 

What's the use of trying to teach arithmetic to a child whose capa- 
bilities are at half their maximum because he cannot chew or 
properly nourish himself? 

What happens to children who have defective teeth but cannot pay for 
dental treatment? 



XI 

WHERE CHURCH AND SCHOOL MEET 

Are Ministers Interested f 

THE traditional interrelation of school and church is al- 
most as inseparable in the public mind as that of 
democracy and education. Do you know a minister who 
will not confess that his office includes the obligation of co- 
operation with schools? He will also probably admit that he 
has a greater opportunity than others outside the school 
system have, because he has unquestioned access to schools, 
to homes, and to cooperating institutions. Yet superin- 
tendents in only one-half the cities that answered gave us the 
names of ministers who had shown interest in public schools. 
The assumed close interrelation between church and 
schools was expressed variously by ministers themselves, who 
affirmed that : Ministers are vitally interested ; ministers have 
done almost nothing; ministers have been interested in a 
half-hearted way, but show little practical cooperation; 
there is some interest, not what ought to exist; lack of 
interest on the part of ministers is lamentable and incredible ; 
ministers do not interest themselves particularly in schools; 
the relation to schools is helpful and stimulating; ministers 
are interested to a considerable extent; they are ready to 
establish a good moral tone in the school; the interest is 
deep and sincere; the interest is spasmodic; the interest is 
not as great as it should be; there is a general interest in 

264 



CHURCH AND SCHOOL 

everything good, including schools; a minister as such is 
not called upon to attend to all these suggestions given 
above; we probably should do more than we do. 

When ministers in some cities have been quite ready to 
cooperate, their help has been impossible because the bogy 
of clerical intrusion is still making Protestant and Catholic 
feel ill at ease. One minister writes that ''the breaking 
up into denominations prevents a united and growing in- 
terest in educational problems." In another city it is re- 
ported that the preponderance of parochial schools keeps 
Protestants from having anything to do with public schools. 
In Roman Catholic communities denominational feeling 
seems to have a distinctly deterrent effect on Protestants. 
Yet when one considers how undenominational are the facts 
and truths about playgrounds, health, non-promotions, 
teachers' salaries, and school sanitation, is it not almost 
a relic of the Dark Ages when differences of creed prevent 
ministers from uniting on such school problems? How can 
any denomination afford to let its creed stand in the way of 
community service? 

It was interesting to find that there is scarcely an advanced 
step in schools which one minister somewhere has not led 
or supported. Ministers of New Britain have given lectures 
in grammar and night schools on history and patriotism, 
which were translated into Swedish, Italian, Polish, and 
Turkish. When the subject of a dental clinic for public 
school children was brought up in another city, a Catholic 
priest spoke at five masses on the necessity of having the 
same kind of examination in the parochial schools. In 
Alameda an active campaign for school bonds had the per- 
sonal support of many ministers, while the pastor of a 
church in Aurora went to the town meeting and urged ade- 
quate school appropriations. 

Medical examination of school children was greatly helped 

265 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

by the clergy in Quincy, while in New Britain again min- 
isters were partly responsible for securing school nurses. 
The First Unitarian Church in Cambridge has a social service 
committee which, with the Visiting Nurse Association, is 
supporting a school nurse in the hope that the city will take 
up the matter later. In Manchester medical inspection and 
kindergartens originated with a minister, then a member 
of the school board. The People's Church in Kalamazoo 
started kindergartens and classes for manual training and 
domestic science, which were taken over by the board of 
education two years later. In Illinois ministers have helped 
enforce the state law for scientific temperance instruction 
in schools. A minister in Quincy, to encourage public 
speaking, offers a yearly prize of $10 in gold for the best 
oration. A minister is the director of a playground asso- 
ciation in New London. In Williamsport, at the town meet- 
ing, ministers took an active part in the discussion of a new 
high school building. An investigation of the public schools 
of Louisville was prompted by the personal study and public 
addresses of the pastor of one church. It is reported that 
ministers in Portland are working heartily for a juvenile 
court. 

In telling of these instances ministers seem to feel that 
the possibilities for cooperation are numerous, but vague, 
indefinite, and not particularly attractive. The traditional 
sense of obligation does not seem to stimulate effective 
initiative in many ministers. From one large city a minister 
writes that the offers of churches to render social service do 
not very much affect things. Ministers in two other cities 
admit that much more might be done, and that there ought 
to be a closer bond between church and school. 

Many churchmen speak of the need for definite informa- 
tion, for an easy way of keeping intelligent about school 
affairs without demanding information from the school offi- 

266 



CHURCH AND SCHOOL 

cials or going after it j&rst-hand. "We are busy men, and 
have not time to make ourselves intelligent in cooperating," 
and "We have little time for the many things you seem to 
expect." One man writes of the absorbing, far-scattered 
work of the modern minister. Another gives the excuse 
that there is no convenient way of gaining information about 
school subjects, and a third minister writes that they need 
vital interest in the details of school government. Speaking 
of the need for playgrounds, one clergyman writes, "I think 
that because of imperfect information as to what is desired 
there is lack of interest in this plan." 

To meet the desire for information before it is even felt is, 
of course, the superintendent's opportunity. He is the one 
to make it easy for ministers to talk about school problems 
and to secure public support for the improvements he is 
anxious to make. When superintendents realize the po- 
tential helpfulness in active cooperation from ministers of 
each and all denominations they will make it impossible for 
any minister to be uninformed or misinformed about school 
facts and needs. 

How Ministers May Inform Themselves 

Visiting schools has a double purpose, because the min- 
ister carries with him to school seriousness and helpfulness, 
while gaining the "local color" and details he needs for his 
writing and talking about schools. The amount of school 
visiting done by ministers seems to vary greatly and depend 
upon the personal interest of the minister himself. School 
visiting is not evidently required by the congregation as 
part of the minister's duty. In one city a minister "visits 
whenever opportunity offers." Two other ministers write 
that they visit schools of their own denomination occa- 
sionally. In another city it is reported that no minister is 

267 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

ever invited to visit schools. From a third we hear that 
no minister ever visits the schools save on invitation, while, 
in a fourth, one clergyman writes of visiting frequently 
that he may be able to give intelligent help. The usual ad- 
jectives attached to school visiting are ''occasional," ''ir- 
regular," and "spasmodic." 

School visiting helps establish cordial relations with the 
superintendents, one of whom affirms that ministers are 
among his most "loyal supporters." From Muncie a min- 
ister writes of the intimacy between the board of education, 
superintendent, principals, and ministers. The superin- 
tendent in Decatur is frequently asked to speak in the 
churches. In Cleveland ministers are addressed by the 
superintendent and members of the board of education, and 
in Mt. Vernon the superintendent has given talks to church 
clubs of men. 

Besides informatiom from visiting, ministers as school 
commissioners have gained first-hand knowledge about 
schools. In New Bedford it is customary to have one 
minister on the school board. For sixteen years in Man- 
chester, New Hampshire, there was at least one Protestant 
minister on the board, and a Catholic priest now serves. 
The Rev. John Heyward, for several years president of the 
Louisville board, secured the establishment of high schools 
in that city. The information gained by a minister through 
service on a school board belongs not only to his congregation, 
but to other ministers and to the city at large. 

Several ministers have suggested that they might be 
invited to attend meetings of the board of education, and be 
selected as members of local school boards. There is no 
better way for ministers to prove their desirability as school 
commissioners than by using effectively the opportunities 
for helpful cooperation which lie before every clergyman. 

Ministers have opportunity to reach school teachers 

268 



CHURCH AND SCHOOL 

through Sunday meetings and Sunday schools. One clergy- 
man in Decatur states that public school teachers make the 
best Sunday school teachers. In Anderson the board of 
education urges its teachers to do active Sunday school 
work. One church in Indianapolis has taken great pains 
to establish a friendly relation with the school authorities. 
This makes all teachers feel that they may call upon the 
pastor at need, while church receptions bring congregation 
and teachers together. In Alameda a church is used for 
meetings of teachers, of clubs, and of the board of education. 
By these means, as well as through newspaper discussion and 
school reports, ministers may secure facts about schools for 
use in sermons and talks on school subjects. 

The Laity League for Social Service 

To keep ministers and churchmen currently informed 
about school and other municipal needs the Laity League, 
a group of church members in New York City, sends out 
information and suggestions: 

The board of estimate and apportionment is to act upon the budget 
for the city of New York on or before the 28th of this month (October). 
It will approach $200,000,000. 

The departments of the city which are concerned with the health, 
morals, and welfare of the citizens have presented their estimates. These 
include many matters which vitally affect the well-being of the babies, 
children, young people, and workers in your church and neighborhood. 
The officials in the board of estimate desire the expression of opinion of 
the church-going people, and are affected by their approval or disapproval 
of definite items in the budget. 

This League has sought the opinion of skilled men regarding the items 
mentioned in the inclosed pages. There is a possibihty that some of 
them may be cut out of the final budget unless you write the official 
whose name is on the inclosed envelope stating in the name of the people 
of your church that you are heartily in favor of each of these items. 

For the sake of the few people you know, and the countless thousands 

269 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

you do not know in the city, who will be aided by the passage of these 
items in the budget, may I not urge you to write a strong letter, and to 
do it quickly? Please inclose the recommendation. 

P.S. — The best way to learn of the needs of the city in its various 
departments is to visit the budget exhibit. It is open daily until 10 p. m. 
Can you not bring this to the personal attention of other men in your 
church? 

During 1911, 5,000 men of the churches were asked by 
the League to consider the advisability of having the school 
buildings more widely used. It is difficult, of course, to 
estimate how many church people are in this way stimulated 
to action, or how much influence is exerted by those who 
do write to the board of education or the board of estimate. 
'' I wish we were able to report a larger and more far-reaching 
work," writes the secretary of the League, ''but the men of 
the churches will need a large amount of education before 
they grasp these things." The League is persistently main- 
taining its efforts to give this education, and is proving that 
a local group of lay church members can keep alive the in- 
terest of ministers and focus their attention on important 
points. 

What shall ministers stand for? 

What changes are most necessary in the school system? 

How can churches help to secure them? 

If the superintendent will not, or dares not, answer these 
questions, the lay body can at least give the facts and recom- 
mendations based on them. The information might be 
equally well and effectively distributed by a woman's club, 
a group of ministers who avoid denominational dangers, or 
by neighborhood church associations. Since budget time 
is the crisis for school cooperators, the maximum force should 
be brought to bear then. But ministers and churchmen 

not kept informed during the year will not be able to speak 

270 



CHURCH AND SCHOOL 

or write adequately at budget time. Since the non-partisan 
influence of the minister on pubHc opinion is important, it 
ought to be inviolable by politics or factions as well as by 
dictates of creed. 

Sermons about Schools 

As early as 1839 the Rev. Isaiah deGrosse in New York 
preached a sermon, "To take into consideration the cause 
of our public schools." After discussing the fact that the 
public schools were not half filled and that two-thirds of the 
children were running wild in the city, he ended, ''For our 
apathy and indifference we are strongly threatened to be de- 
prived of these elegant schools." 

Many ministers time their school sermons so they fit into 
a logical period, when, because of opening, closing, or ex- 
amination time, there is newspaper discussion of school 
matters. In Washington, D. C, ministers generally give a 
sermon on schools when they open in September. A yearly 
service devoted to schools and children takes place in the 
Park Chm-ch in Elmira, while one church in Indianapolis 
uses "every opportunity to discuss school needs and to 
present school questions." In Mt. Vernon a bond issue 
for purchasing school property was the subject of a sermon, 
and in Cairo a minister preached on vocational education. 
From Philadelphia we hear that the country should set 
aside a national holiday when all the ministers will agree 
to talk about schools. These bits of information suggest 
topics for sermons: 

What is Our Education Buying? (School budget time) 
The Child Failure (Non-promotions) 

Preparing for Future Life (Industrial and vocational training) 
The Right to Health (Medical examination and treatment) 
The Basis of Moral Training in Our Public Schools (Accuracy and 
promptness) 

271 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

By addresses to parents' associations, to church groups, 
and at public school exercises, ministers have another way 
of passing on information about schools. In several cities 
we hear that clergymen have spoken to mothers' clubs, and 
in Galesburg the movement for parent-teacher associations 
was systematically helped by ministers. The baccalaureate 
sermon in high or grammar schools is meant as much for 
parents as for children. Properly handled publicity in 
local papers gives such addresses double emphasis. 

Of course, the type of sermon and address offered by 
ministers helps to determine whether the superintendent 
cares for their cooperation and whether he appreciates the 
necessity of keeping them informed about school affairs. 
But the more misinformed, theoretical, and impractical a 
minister may be, the more harm he may do the schools. 
Ministers are going to preach, and are going to address 
groups of parents. Their sermons are going to be reported 
and printed. Is it not far safer to see that they have accu- 
rate, up-to-date information? 

What One Church Has Done 

The value of suggestions in this story will not be decreased 
by anonymity. It is written by a man too fine to misstate 
the facts when he says, "As far as I know, my own church 
is the only one in the last 17 years that has tried to influence 
for their good the work of our city public schools." If I 
told you his name you would accept this statement. 

He writes first of the yearly meetings held in the church 
since 1901 in the interest of public schools, of citizenship 
meetings on Wednesday evenings, when school topics are 
discussed, such as methods of teaching, manual training, 
school hygiene, and gardens for boys. He tells of a sermon, 
coming usually just after the opening of the schools in Sep- 

272 



CHURCH AND SCHOOL 

tember, which is devoted to school questions; of visits to 
schools during the year on the invitation of principals; of 
talks to pupils; of Sunday morning talks to parents on their 
relation to the schools, as, for example, ^' What Society Owes 
the Teacher." In the summer time the church does vacation 
work with boys to "keep them from the recorder's court," 
by opening gardens in vacant lots where the school boys 
work and play under the supervision of one of the young 
men of the congregation. The church persuaded the cham- 
ber of commerce to send a delegate to the national conven- 
tion on school gardening, thus interesting the city business 
men in the garden plan. When the gardens are running 
smoothly and have proved their success, this minister hopes 
that the board of education will be able to take over and 
extend the work by making a playground along the river 
and building bath houses. ''It should not be a charity." 

To bring about more intelligent understanding of schools 
by the people this clergyman was one of the strongest advo- 
cates for the school bulletin, which now gives each month, 
in interesting form, news of what is being done and what is 
being planned by principals, teachers, and children. 

One feels sure that the work of this church has helped 
when, in speaking of recent innovations under a progressive 
superintendent, our minister writes, ''It seems now as if 
everything some of us have been hoping and pulling for were 
coming all at once." It is not how much has happened as a 
result of this man's work that counts, but the fact that things 
do happen when a minister fully realizes his opportunity to 
help schools. This is the method of cooperation for ministers 
which the denominational bogy cannot withstand. 

The Minister's Opportunity 

The informed minister has a threefold chance to help 
on school problems — as a member of a ministerial associa- 

273 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

tion, as one of a lay organization, and as pastor of a 
church. 

Ministerial associations seem to be only incidentally in- 
terested in schools, ''leaving to chance any assistance." 
Though occasional associations have been addressed by 
superintendents, we rarely hear of any prolonged coopera- 
tion resulting. One minister sent a questionnaire to members 
of the ministerial association to find out what had been 
done in his city. The answers showed that there is no 
committee on public schools, that none of the standing com- 
mittees pay any attention to schools, that no ministers ever 
report doing anything for schools, and that there is no par- 
ticularly sympathetic feeling between church and school. 
Our correspondent seemed to feel that this ministerial asso- 
ciation would have to broaden somewhat its interests and 
sympathies before the school would receive much benefit 
from its cooperation. 

The Congressional Brotherhood in New Bedford, however, 
has a minister on the school board who is responsible for 
keeping that organization actively interested in schools. 
Another ministerial association is striving to revoke the law 
which prohibits the use of the King James version in the 
schools. It would be interesting to know what position 
this particular form of cooperation would take in a relative 
list of school needs not met, as outlined in order of their 
importance by the superintendent. 

Some day a ministerial association is going to astonish 
the world by showing what can actually be done with an 
active school committee to arrange for the dissemination 
of school facts, secure publicity through school sermons, 
and see that special school items are preached about on 
definite days by all ministers of the city. This last has 
proved effective in New York, where sermons have been 
given on budget needs and charter evils. Ministerial asso- 

274 



CHURCH AND SCHOOL 

ciations have made only a beginning. As individual 
clergymen become interested in school problems they will 
find, as the physicians and dentists have found, that it 
is easier to give community service by working through 
an organization than by working as an individual. It is 
comparatively easy for a church conference to call atten- 
tion to school questions and to see that the machinery is 
available for uniform work by churches throughout the 
city or state. The Federal Council Commission on the 
Church and Social Service has such an opportunity. A 
central committee can see that suggestions of how ministers 
can help are sent to local groups, and through them to 
individual clergymen. 

Churchmen are not working alone in their local situations. 
Through civic and social service leagues, public education 
or home and school associations, through playground, school 
garden, and kindergarten associations, ministers have ex- 
pressed interest. There are also within each church the 
many organizations, social, philanthropic, and educational, 
which may be interested by the minister in school 
questions. In Chelsea a committee from the men's club 
of one church visits night schools in order to ''cooperate 
in some helpful way." One church society in Montpelier 
is active in providing clothes for school children; and a 
Men's Forum, of which the superintendent is chairman, is 
emphasizing the need for a new high school building. 

Some ministers, but apparently only a very few, have seen 
the possibilities of church club work for schools. It is 
probably only a question of time before every church will 
be kept in touch with school problems by its own organiza- 
tion. One clergyman has said," Church clubs made of parents 
and friends don't need to be told to help schools"; but they 
do generally need to be told from the experience of other out- 
side workers and from the needs of the schools," how " to help. 
19 275 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

Individual churches through their volunteer workers have 
been doing what settlements do. I know four college women 
who, because they want to do something "philanthropic," 
go once a week to a church mission to teach half a hundred 
little Italian children how to set a table, wash dishes, and 
make beds. Yet these children, and thousands more every 
year, are without manual training in the schools. The 
energy which gets 50 children and mothers of one district 
to come to church for clubs and classes could secure the same 
advantage for them, and for every mother and child who 
needs it, by having schools equipped and opened in the after- 
noon and evening. But as long as many activities are car- 
ried on by churches unconnected with the public school 
system, though logically belonging there, just so long will 
it be impossible for boards of education to secure the neces- 
sary support for efficiently socialized schools. 

How many mothers' clubs are there in the neighborhood of yom- church? 

Do they meet in the school or the church? 

Have you asked the school board to open a school in the afternoon 

for your church classes, so that more than the Sunday school 

classes can benefit by your service? 
Are the children who go to your Sunday school and other church classes 

examined for physical defects? 
How many are found defective? 
How many receive the necessary treatment? 
Would they receive more continuous and effective care if there were 

adequate school inspection and school nursing? 
How many children who come to your classes are truants in school? 
Will your interest in their cases lead to securing efficient attendance 

officers, juvenile courts, boys' clubs in schools? 

Ethics in Public School ? 

What proportion of school children go to Sunday school and public 

school? 
How many hours a year do they spend in Sunday school and in 

public school? 

276 



CHURCH AND SCHOOL 

People are realizing that the ethical teaching necessary 
to bring children to maturity with good principles must be 
given through some more continuous and general channel 
than the Sunday school. The daily life of the child goes on 
chiefly under the influence of the public school and its allied 
activities, the playground, gymnasium, and street. Any 
moral training that most children will get outside their 
homes will come through school or not at all. 

Teacher and school playmate are strong ethical or un- 
ethical influences on every child. What can churches 
give the school teacher to help her teach ethics ? The 
church's lesson to children must be given through public 
school teachers, though they certainly do not want to be 
lectured about abstract morality. What message can be given 
by churches so that a teacher will realize the beauty and 
ethical value of every piece of routine in her life, of every 
relation with her 30 or 50 children? What is more un- 
ethical than a dirty school, a poorly paid and poorly trained 
teacher; a large proportion of children failing each year, or 
children hampered by remediable physical defects? If 
churches and ministers cannot teach this, they might as well 
realize the futility of doctrine which has no easy, helpful, 
practical application. 

Other agencies, non-clerical, have seen the value of 
teaching morals in schools. There is now a National Insti- 
tution for Moral Instruction, with headquarters in Balti- 
more, which will send a lecturer with stereopticon illustra- 
tions to talk in the schools on character making. Mr. 
Milton J. Fairchild does not use theories, but brings ethics 
"home" by stories of things happening in the life of every 
child, familiar things like "The True Sportsman," "What 
People Think About Boys' Fights," and "What I Am Going 
to Do When I Am Grown Up." Follow-up work for 

teachers is outlined to supplement the lectures and corre- 

277 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

late visual instruction in morals with school work and 
school play. 

Vacation Schools by City or Church 

Our cooperation with the board of education consists of trying to avoid 
the location of schools in the immediate vicinity of those of the board 
of education. In only the rarest cases is this contiguity noticeable, and 
then each school appears to reach a different class of children in a dif- 
ferent way. 

The National Vacation Bible School Association is doing 
through churches and missions on a small scale what boards 
of education are doing on a large scale, and it is affecting 
about 20,000 children in the United States. It claims to 
reach through its schools a class that the public schools do 
not reach, and to supplement city schools where inefficient. 

Partly to see whether the summer work by outside 
agencies, churches, settlements, and playground guilds is 
really doing something the board of education cannot do in 
New York, and partly to find out how many more vacation 
schools are needed, the Association of Collegiate Alumnae 
made a study of summer facilities for children under school 
age. An inquiry in other cities would probably reveal a 
similar situation. At their own very highest estimate the 
outside agencies are reaching only 11% of the children, and 
the city schools and playgrounds are accommodating only 
36%. As far as can be estimated, 160,000 children in one 
borough alone will have no place but the streets to play or 
work this summer. Yet there are available public schools 
which, if used, would at once almost double the accommo- 
dations for children. 

The lesson in this report is clear: That the outside agencies 

and churches which cannot reach more than 11% of the 

children without great expense for new buildings and grounds 

would be twice as useful if they used their experience to 

278 




woman's club: columbxjs: playground wader,^ 




PUBLIC SCHOOLS ATHLETIC LEAGLTE: NEW YORK! ON A SCHOOL ROOF 




A. I. C. P.: SEA BREEZE BATHING PARTIES 
SUMMER PLAY MAKES WINTER HEALTH 



CHURCH AND SCHOOL 

emphasize the need for more vacation schools under the board 
of education and for the necessary budget appropriations. 
But instead of using their increased attendance roll to show 
how many more children could be reached by the public 
schools, the outside agencies say that they themselves are 
meeting a peculiar need and are not duplicating the city's 
work. Do you know any one interested in vacation schools 
who will admit that meeting 10% of the summer need is as 
important to the community as meeting 90%? Yet that 
is just what the failure to see the possibilities in the city's 
work claims. 

No one thinks the less of the Vacation School and Play- 
ground Committee in Chicago because after it had for years, 
with funds from 67 women's clubs, opened, equipped, and 
run 12 vacation schools and playgrounds throughout the 
city, the board of education made financial arrangements 
and assumed entire control. The Graffort Club in Ports- 
mouth maintained a summer school of 100 children, teaching 
domestic science and manual work imder the general super- 
vision of the superintendent of schools. 

One of the best ways of showing vacation school needs 
not met by church, city, or any one else, is to locate each 
school and playground on a map and to estimate the pro- 
portion of children not reached by any summer work. 
Only on such a basis of what we have can we estimate accu- 
rately what more we need and just where we need it. 

For the history of vacation school development, see The 
Wider Use of the School Plant, by Clarence A. Perry, of the 
Russell Sage Foundation. 



XII 

THE BUSINESS MAN's CONTRIBUTION TO SCHOOLS 

A Measure for His Interest 

HOW many business men will admit that "the average 
man is too prone to leave the educational trend to the 
enthusiasm and more or less discriminating conclusions of 
women's clubs"? This was written in 1902 by Andrew S. 
Draper, now New York's state commissioner of education. 
In answer to our questions about the cooperation of business 
men with schools, instances have been told which lead one 
to believe that perhaps matters have changed since then. 
That the business man, when intelligently interested, has 
accomplished much for schools is proved by the stories in 
this chapter. The effectiveness of initiative on the part 
of business men was shown, for example, when "a delegation 
from the master builders in Denver made a plea before the 
school board for vocational training, with the result that 
plans for a building are now being drawn up." The super- 
intendent wrote this in May, and the next August the school 
opened with many more applicants than could be accom- 
modated. In Freeport ''a few unorganized men pushed 
the question of new buildings to a successful conclusion 
after two adverse votes. They simply wore the opposition 
out." Gifts of $10,000 were made by business men in 
Columbus, Georgia, for primary and secondary industrial 
schools, "to fit boys and girls to earn their own living," 

2S0 



BUSINESS MAN'S CONTRIBUTION 

and an advisory committee was formed for these schools. 
In Newark, New Jersey, ^'business men participate through 
parent-teacher associations and civic bodies. Indeed, the 
city is quite wide awake in this hne." 

The business men, 135 of them, who, the superintendent 
told us, were most actively interested in education, reported 
generally that men of their cities had not shown special 
interest in supporting requests for various kinds of school 
improvement. In 49 of 135 cities business men have worked 
for industrial training, and in 48 cities for school buildings. 
Playgrounds in 46 cities have won the interest of business 
men, athletics in 38 cities, and in 35 cities commercial 
training. Thirty-four correspondents mentioned the co- 
operation of citizens at school budget time, 24 in getting 
school laws amended and in securing public lectures. Night 
schools have actively interested business men in 21 cities. 
In one of these, Montgomery, an educational committee of 
a business men's organization, with the state superintendent 
as chairman, started night schools in the factory district. 
This work is now part of the school system. Civic training 
through schools interested business men in only 15 out of 
135 cities. 

Other points on which there has been cooperation are 
kindergartens and scholarships, using schools for social 
centers, continuation schools, and school health. Business 
men in Elyria organized in home garden associations to 
work with school children; while in another city garden 
work is carried on by a men's committee directly supervised 
by the United States bureau of agriculture In Bellaire a 
business firm gives ''treats" to all the children in the public 
schools. In Arlington business men were directly concerned 
with getting a vacation school for the children of market 
gardeners. The Business Men's Committee on Tuberculosis 
in Cohoes raised enough money to employ a school nurse, 

281 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

who visits each school monthly and induces parents to take 
their children to free clinics. The Board of Trade in Win- 
ston Salem was directly responsible for starting a compulsory 
system of medical inspection. You probably know of other 
instances in your city. We actually found men so eager 
to claim active participation in school work that they even 
wrote: "Business men have worked through organizations 
as follows: mothers' clubs, women's clubs." 

But lest you think that these successful reports from all 
parts of the country represent what all business men in all 
our cities are thinking and doing about schools, the same 
figures also tell what has not been done. They tell that in 
61%, considerably over half, of the cities reporting, business 
men mention no special attention given by themselves or 
their colleagues to securing school improvements or meeting 
school needs. And these men were mentioned by their 
superintendents, remember, as the ones most closely in 
touch with schools. They represent the interest of probably 
20 business men in 135 cities of 200,000 or 10,000 inhabi- 
tants, and they do not speak for 365 other fair-sized cities 
in our country. 

When it is written that men have ''been interested" in 
athletics or night schools or school legislation, it islmpossible 
to tell whether this cooperation included solving 1% or 50% 
of the problem. Let me quote statements from some other 
places: "Our schools have suffered and are suffering for more 
general interest from business men of both city and country," 
wrote a man who had for years taken an active part in school 
matters. "Business men of our city give no attention to 
school matters; they elect an efficient board, vote all the 
money it asks for, and leave it to its own devices." Such a 
statement seems to represent the prevailing attitude across 
the continent. "The taxpayer as a general thing is satisfied 
to leave it entirely to the board of directors. No attempt on 

2S2 




BUSINESS MAX — Sf'HOOL COMMISSIONER: ONE RESULT 




DEPARTMENT STORE! CASH GIRLS : STATE SUPERINTENDENT 
BUSINESS AND EDUCATION EXCHANGE VISITS IN DENVER 



BUSINESS MAN'S CONTRIBUTION 

the part of business men to meddle." ''Beyond a general 
feeling of willingness and desire on the part of the people 
to maintain a high standard of public schools, there is not 
more than spasmodic interest of women's clubs, commercial 
organizations, etc. Most of the business men give little 
time to school work, but pay their taxes cheerfully." One 
of our correspondents is compelled to report a "deplorable 
lack of interest on the part of business men, at least so far 
as such interest is manifested by personal cooperation with 
school authorities." Frojn another state we learn that there 
is "a general interest, but not where everything is going 
smoothly." ''The community in general supports the board, 
but there is no committee or organization at work." An- 
other city tells us that neither as a whole nor in any of their 
organizations do business men show any direct interest. 
"The board is largely made up of business men, and there 
is, therefore, no urgent need for forcing them in regard to 
school matters." 

This is a fair selection of answers from cities of all sizes. 
The men who wrote represent professional, business, and 
official paths of life. Among them are lawyers and bankers, 
retail dealers, wholesale manufactiu"ers, real estate men, 
farmers, an architect, a court recorder, a brewer, a lumber- 
man, a librarian, a newspaper editor, and a shipper. 

Is the opportunity to help schools over for a business 
man v/hen he has paid his taxes and seen that "good" com- 
missioners are elected to the school board? Some of our 
correspondents, business men, were actually indignant that 
anything more should be expected of them. "Men bear the 
burden of taxes for our costly school system without fault- 
finding." Yet, how many cities can boast unanimous 
approval of tax increases for necessary school improve- 
ments? In several western towns the slowness of school 
improvement was attributed by the superintendents to the 

283 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

bitter feeling of citizens against school taxes. How true 
is the tradition that good men always pay especially intelli- 
gent attention to school elections? Does the annual school 
election draw a large attendance? What percentage of 
business men go to the polls? From Portland, Oregon, 
where business men are very proud of their schools, one 
citizen writes, "The vote of our school district is small, 
few people turning out." 

The optimism of the phrase you hear so often, "Our schools 
are the best in the country," comes from a business man's 
clear conscience when he has delegated to a school board the 
authority for school administration. His interest, when 
active, is genuine, his pride is genuine; he would not for 
worlds have the schools fall behind the highest standards. 
When anything goes wrong, or when the chance of helping 
actively is clearly presented to him, he responds. 

How Organized Business Men Help 

Has your chamber of commerce a committee on schools? 
Has it ever asked the superintendent to speak? 
What school topics has it discussed? 

The Commercial Club of Indianapolis is reported by the 
superintendent to be "very active in creating pubhc senti- 
ment to raise teachers' salaries; in fact, they can be relied 
on at all times to support v/hatever is presented to them 
that relates to the good of the schools." This organization 
maintains an educational committee, which has shown spe- 
cial interest in school buildings, industrial training, civics, 
playgrounds, and public lectures. Its cooperation is al- 
ways welcomed by school officials. Investigations are made 
whenever the directors think that the situation deserves 
attention. The Cleveland Chamber has had a very 
valuable and efficient part in the installing of manual and 

284 



BUSINESS MAN'S CONTRIBUTION 

domestic training and in securing new buildings. The Com- 
mercial Club of Peru is interested in patriotic observances, 
and endeavors in every way to stimulate civic pride among 
school children. 

The Board of Trade in Kearney has a publicity committee 
which gives to the papers a weekly story on special school 
topics. By this method press leadership on school ques- 
tions is stimulated. For example, when the superintendent's 
last report was published, the Board of Trade wrote a 
newspaper story about the most important phases of school 
administration to be watched next year, which happened 
to be the medical inspection law, higher salaries and higher 
standards for teachers. On Arbor Day the Board of Trade 
offers prizes for essays written by school children on "How 
to Make Kearney More Beautiful." At the request of school 
officials in Greenville, the Board of Trade supported a bond 
issue of $40,000 for new buildings, and took an interest in 
methods of collecting school taxes. Through this organiza- 
tion men have given talks at schools, "thus promoting a 
better understanding between farmers and town men," 
and have succeeded in establishing a college for business 
instruction. In Newark the Board of Trade has a standing 
committee which has been "upholding the board of educa- 
tion in its requests for money used in all good things." 
This committee keeps the whole body of business men posted. 
To its efforts was largely due the securing of a smaller board 
of education. 

The Board of Trade in Winston Salem, besides starting 
medical inspection as a result of the superintendent's talk 
before its members, has taken an interest — largely on the 
instigation of a few prominent men — in school buildings, 
school budgets, law, commercial and industrial training, 
civics, athletics, and playgrounds. Through the Board of 
Trade a dentist arranged to make addresses at schools on 

285 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

the care of the teeth, and compulsory examination of school 
children was afterward secured. Exhibits were held in 
factories to "show the children the relation of civic condi- 
tions in the city and of its future welfare to the success of 
manufacturing, and to the value of training and physical 
strength. The children wrote some 200 voluntary compo- 
sitions on this subject. Through these talks and exhibits 
to the school children the people of the city have learned 
many facts about their own community." 

A special committee of the Commercial Club in East St. 
Louis secured the nucleus of a playground fund by selling 
lapel buttons to their business associates. In Topeka the 
Commercial Club has arranged for addresses on trade 
schools, and made an effort to establish an industrial school 
through which the board of education may cooperate with 
manufacturing establishments. 

The City Club of Philadelphia purposes 'Ho arrange for 
meetings of teachers on civics and to cooperate with the 
board of education in a movement for social centers. Defi- 
nite and favorable relations have been established with the 
school authorities and with the local branches of the Home 
and School Association. The superintendent of schools re- 
cently asked the directors of the Club to lend him its civic 
secretary in order to work out an effective system of training 
for public schools." The superintendent has said that he 
"welcomes the aid and gladly records the value of such 
assistance." 

The Boston Chamber of Commerce has, besides its edu- 
cational committee and its advisory board to the High School 
of Commerce, an advisory board to the Trade School for 
Girls, to the Mechanical Arts High School, and the Voca- 
tion Bureau. In Oklahoma City the Chamber of Com- 
merce maintains an advisory committee to the board of edu- 
cation, "acting with excellent results," even supervising 

286 



BUSINESS MAN'S CONTRIBUTION 

contracts for a half-million dollar high school. To stop a 
certain street railway franchise which would have impaired 
school property in Seattle, a committee of two representa- 
tive organizations of men was appointed at the solicitation 
of the school board to effect a settlement. In May, 1911, 
the Trenton Chamber of Commerce appointed a school 
committee which has taken up the question of industrial 
education. Sub -committees of the Chamber of Commerce 
in Washington, D. C, make careful examinations of school 
subjects, cooperate with the School Art League on decora- 
tions, and once a year hold a marksmanship contest among 
school boys for which a gold medal is awarded. 

These illustrations show two types of organization. One 
is the continuous committee of business men, either working 
toward a definite point or constantly in touch, making sug- 
gestions and offering help to the school authorities on all 
questions. The other is the club which does not keep up 
its interest throughout the year, but is willing to help at a 
crisis. Of course, the supposed reason that a business man 
or organization is at all interested in schools is that the 
product of them must be used in business, and a certain fa- 
miliarity is desirable with the mechanism which turns out 
the product — equipment, conditions of work, and course 
of study. Pleasant, cordial relations with superintendents, 
principals, and teachers, especially those in business and 
trade courses, are most readily maintained through a com- 
mittee or an individual delegated to keep in touch. It is 
easy to have a committee appointed. How it can best work, 
and what it should work for, are more serious questions. A 
chamber of commerce in a New York city answered our 
first question, ''What have business men done to help 
schools?" by saying, ''nothing." Shortly after came from 
them the query, "What have other chambers of commerce 
done?" We answered with instances Hke those told here, 

287 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

and back came the request, "Will you suggest a program 
of school cooperation suitable for our chamber?" The 
answer from experiences of other cities is given in this 
chapter, with the thought that other groups of business men 
may be asking the same question. 

The Manufacturer and Industrial Training 

Manufacturers are beginning to realize that in competition 
under the principles of scientific management the success 
of an industry will increasingly depend on the working effi- 
ciency and mental, physical, and moral caliber of the em- 
ployees. The natural interest of business men in this direc- 
tion is being utilized by school people. The commissioner 
of education and specialists in industrial training throughout 
Massachusetts have secured the close and constructive co- 
operation of manufacturers and other business men by show- 
ing how shop and school can mutually aid each other. 

Some of the most progressive school work, from the effi- 
ciency development viewpoint, is being done in schools where 
boys and girls are largely the children of "hands," and the 
question of early earning vs. increased earning power must 
be solved practically. The schools connected with the 
great steel corporation at Gary have visitors from all over 
the continent, because the superintendent has been given 
carte blanche to turn out healthy, well-equipped children, 
and he is doing it by some unconventional methods. In 
many southern towns where the state expenditure for edu- 
cation is inadequate, mill owners are bearing the expenses 
of schools and kindergartens and allied educational work, 
playgrounds and libraries, for all the children of their op- 
eratives. A big milling company in Greenville, for example, 
has worked out the problem of industrial training as part of 
its village improvement scheme. In the public schools at- 

288 



BUSINESS MAN'S CONTRIBUTION 

tended by the children of mill hands there are classes where 
special aptitudes are fostered. Every opportunity is given 
the child to become an Al worker; medical and dental 
examinations give him a chance for health, and night school 
facilities in the ''three Rs," textile designing, drawing, and 
engineering, permit him to specialize according to his tastes. 

Of course, the companies that consider the education of 
children as "welfare" Vv^ork stand out prominently. In 
contrast, the conditions that exist in some big industries are 
the more shocking. No company can affect more than 
its own operatives, or be sure of a continuous supply of 
trained employees, until it works through state and city 
machinery to give all children or future employees the 
same advantages. As experiment stations the "company 
schools," sometimes half under public subsidy, have great 
opportunities for showing to all employers the business ad- 
vantages of secondary education which actually fits for 
industry. From every mill village superintendents and 
school commissioners may learn valuable lessons which 
may be modified for city application. 

This "industrial education" must be distinguished, so 
experts say, from manual training, which is simply education 
by handwork and does not lead to a trade. Industrial edu- 
cation must be manual training unless it is merely a dead- 
ening ordeal unrelated to geography, literature, or math- 
ematics. Manual training in the ordinary public school is, 
so to speak, to try out those who like handwork and want 
to be industrially educated. So it has been logically the 
first step to interest outsiders. 

As long ago as 1881 experiments were begun in Boston 
by a private agency, the North Bennet Industrial School. 
Classes were brought from the public school to be instructed 
in a building established and equipped by private gifts. 
Ten years later training became compulsory in the public 

289 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

schools, and industrial work was carried on in connection 
with other school activities — liteniture, mathematics, and 
history. 

Any one especially interested in industrial training has, 
as a member of the school board, a good opportunity to 
develop trade courses. In Denver the system of manual 
training, ending in the big, new trade school, was due to 
the enthusiasm of a business man, then a member of the 
board, who made a special trip to visit all the eastern schools 
which gave any sort of handwork. 

In a city where business men are not organized it has 
been found easier for men to secure industrial courses by 
acting in advisory capacity to an already flourishing woman's 
club. A preliminary survey of the opportunities for learning 
trades in your city, and of the courses in the school system 
which equip boys and girls with a higher earning capacity, 
can be made by any one. 

Can boys in your schools learn to be printers, bookbindors, carpenters, 

iron workers, etc.? 
What do the schools teach gn-ls to be? 

How much does the school l)udu;et allow for industrial training? 
How much is spent on mimual training and domestic science? 
How many can take the courses oiYered, antl what does the curriculum 

cover? 
In what grade does industrial training begin? 
Are there night school facilities for working boys? 
Has a continuation part-time scheme been tried to connect the school 

with the shop or store? 
How many boys and girls stop school at fourteen to work? 
What is their average earning capacity at this age? 
How many of these end in "blind alley" trades? 
How much would it cost to establish an adequate system of industrial 

training, and how much would the running expenses be each year? 

For information about trade training, write to the Massa- 
chusetts Commission on Industrial Etlucation; or to the 

290 



BUSINESS MAN'S CONTRIBUTION 

National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Educa- 
tion, 20 West 44th Street, New York, whose bulletin, The 
Organization and Courses of Study of the Compulsory Trade 
and Continuation School for Boys in Munich, describes a 
system famous throughout the world. 

Day Continuation Schools vs. Night Schools 

Humanity at last is coming to the rescue of the boys and 
girls who, at work all day, are trying to supplement their 
schooling by night study. The city superintendent in New 
York in his last annual report calls our night schools for boys 
under nineteen a '^ gigantic blunder"; yet the night school 
has been necessary to make the public realize that some 
opportunity for keeping on at school must be given to the 
working boy and girl. Outside organizations have also 
fostered the demand for night instruction. In Atlanta a 
night school for girls was carried on entirely by a group of 
women assisted by clergymen. It was later taken over by 
the board of education. 

Many thousands of children and adults every year are 
securing a little book learning, harder earned than their 
daily bread. These are usually the ones most worthy of 
having education made as accessible as possible. Having 
found the night school unsuccessful, we are beginning to 
adopt Germany's complete system of continuation schools. 

Cincinnati has established continuation schools to enforce 
the state law making compulsory the attendance of all chil- 
dren who are under sixteen years of age or have not finished 
the eighth grade. The board of education provides sessions 
throughout the city from four to five in the afternoon and 
from one to five on Saturdays. Each child attending must 
present the regular school certificate of age. Thus, instead 
of being forced to work in the evening with weary minds 

20 291 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

and bodies when fit only for recreation or the lightest of 
studies, these children can attend school, at the employer's 
expense, eight hours a week without fear of losing their 
positions. For children who are already on the road to a 
vocation this arrangement makes it possible to gain two 
years of business experience while finishing the required 
school course. 

Evening trade schools and courses in design or commercial 
training are to enable older children to gain added ability, 
or perhaps enter a more remunerative trade. In New York 
the trades unions have come out with a hearty endorsement 
of evening schools. The carpenters have written their 
members • 

Local Union 247 especially desires to impress upon our apprentice 
members the opportunity now afforded them for advancing themselves, 
enabling them to get out of the rut and to insure more favorable pros- 
pects for future success than they can possibly expect by the precarious 
apprenticeship system now in vogue. 

Our union will excuse you from attending our meetings during the 
school term. Grasp your opportunity now. Enroll at once and en- 
deavor to acquire proficiency in carpentry, architectural drawing, math- 
ematics, and other studies the school affords. Principal Henry T. Wood 
will accord you all encouragement possible. You will incur no expense, 
and your time will be spent to your personal advantage and to the credit 
of your associates in Local Union 247. 

The pattern makers have gone even farther and declared 
that all apprentices will have to attend the public evening 
school, where a course will be given them under the joint 
supervision of the school authorities and a committee of 
the union, and from which certificates and diplomas for 
satisfactory work will be issued, bearing the seals of the 
board of education and the Pattern Makers' Association. 
The school committee of the union will investigate the work 
and attendance of the apprentices, and also make reports 
on the subject of discipline and curriculum. If the courses 

292 



BUSINESS MAN'S CONTRIBUTION 

are overcrowded, members of the union are to be given 
preference in the matter of admission, although the courses 
shall be free to the public. This arrangement is bringing 
back the guild school in the guise of a thoroughly equipped 
public school. 

^^ Taking Schools to the Shops ^' 

In Cincinnati also is being tried an experiment of field 
work connected with school work which seems to be ap- 
plicable in any city and to any line of business. Manu- 
facturers, business men, employers generally, some of whom 
heartily opposed the plan before trying it, are unanimous 
in saying that it works. The students in the engineering 
school of the University of Cincinnati spend half their time 
in the lecture room and half in the shops of manufacturers 
as regular employees on full pay. There they put into prac- 
tice this week what they learned at the University last week. 
They work in couples; one oils machines or shovels sand for 
six days in a shop. Next week he goes to the lecture room, 
and his partner takes his place in overalls. The manu- 
facturer thus has no break in the work done for him, and 
the boys incidentally earn almost enough to pay for their 
college course. The University pays the salary of a ''co- 
ordinator," who sees that shop work and lectiu'es deal with 
the same subjects at the same time and that efficient work 
is given to each by the students. 

As rapidly as possible, similar arrangements are being 
made for high school and grammar school boys and girls. 
Business men are so enthusiastic about the scheme that 
they want it thoroughly tried out. They say the appren- 
tice students work extra hard and are filled with extra am- 
bition to learn all parts of the job quickly. Plain business 
competition and the growing demands among boys and girls 
for practical training will make the idea spread. After 

293 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

seeing how it works in Cincinnati, do you dare, without a 
trial, say that it will fail in your city? 

Part-time field work to supplement vocational and indus- 
trial activities of the school may be arranged through a cham- 
ber of commerce or board of trade, or by direct offer from 
manufacturers and business firms to the superintendent. 
For the details of the Cincinnati plan, write to Dean Herman 
A. Schneider, University of Cincinnati; or to the Schmidlapp 
Fund, which is effecting the cooperation of high schools with 
shops employing girls; or to Superintendent Frank B. Dyer, 
who is this year president of the division of superintendence 
of the National Education Association. 

Commercial Training 

In the fall of 1911 the New York Chamber of Commerce 
appointed a committee to study commercial training and 
schools of commerce in London and other cities, with a view 
to suggesting changes in the teaching of commercial subjects 
in New York. The preliminary findings of this committee 
justified not only the appointment of a permanent com- 
mittee to study the same questions, but also a special 
meeting of the Chamber for discussing the findings. As 
New York was shown to be far behind most of the cities in 
Europe and some in the United States, specific recommenda- 
tions were made, among them thaf^a system of commercial 
examinations be conducted in cooperation with the school 
authorities. Under this plan successful candidates will re- 
ceive from the Chamber a certificate for a certain grade of 
proficiency. It is expected that this will inspire students to 
an extra effort in order to pass the examinations. Arrange- 
ments will also be made by which holders of these certificates 
will be preferred for employment by merchants. Special 
courses in Spanish, a free employment bureau for certificate 

294 



BUSINESS MAN'S CONTRIBUTION 

holders, a scholarship fund for students wishing to take 
advanced courses in commerce and foreign languages, are 
other plans outlined by the Chamber's committee. A half- 
million dollar fund is to be raised by the Chamber to es- 
tablish a commercial building for the College of the City 
of New York. The school officials have welcomed both 
criticism and cooperation. What has been done in New 
York can be done in other cities. For information write to 
Mr, George P. Brett, chairman of the committee on com- 
mercial education of the Chamber of Commerce, New York. 

A High School Advisory Committee 

At a gathering of representative business men held in 
Boston in the autumn of 1906 the new high school of com- 
merce was the subject of an interesting discussion. The 
consensus of opinion was that a successful school should be 
developed by cooperation between the city and the business 
men. The chairman of the Boston school board suggested 
that a committee of business men be formed. Representa- 
tives of the Merchants' Association, the Associated Board of 
Trade, and the Chamber of Commerce were chosen to 
formulate a plan which was adopted by the board of educa- 
tion. From 25 representatives of various business activities 
five were selected as an executive body to meet monthly. 
A year later the business men's committee proposed a series 
of recommendations which, as they hoped, have proved of 
vital assistance in the development of the school. "So far 
as it is known, this is the first time that such cooperation 
between the school authorities and the business men has 
been effected in this country." The plan has, however, the 
experience of Germany to presuppose its success in the 
United States. Schoolmen and business leaders alike are 
enthusiastic. 

295 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

To give students an idea of their future opportunities in 
business, they are taken in groups to visit business houses. 
At weekly intervals business men speak to students, and a 
course of lectures dealing with the local industries has been 
given by a competent authority. The plan of summer em- 
ployment, "simple and effective," was also put in practice 
by the business men's committee. A circular letter was sent 
to a number of business houses asking cooperation. The 
boys applied to the employment managers of the firms 
which offered assistance. The boys brought to their em- 
ployers a record from the school. All boys who engaged in 
summer occupations returned to the school upon the opening 
day and brought with them statements from the several 
business houses covering the records made in their tem- 
porary positions. A circular containing quotations of letters 
received from business houses shows that beyond doubt the 
experiment was successful and should be continued during 
succeeding years. 

Through a fund donated by business houses the high school 
is collecting a technical library and a commercial museum 
of raw materials and manufactured products. Traveling 
scholarships enable some students to visit and report on 
Central American countries or to make special studies in 
other cities. 

Is there any way in your city for boys and girls to get free training 
in stenography, bookkeeping, and commercial procedure? 

What do you think of an arrangement by which high school students 
serve a portion of their time as apprentices in business houses? 

Are there night schools which give commercial courses? 

Could you in your business use a number of boys, still in school, for 
practice work a certain number of hours per week? or in summer? 

To interest business and professional men in the annual 

school exhibit, the superintendent in Selma put this letter 

in the newspapers: 

396 



BUSINESS MAN'S CONTRIBUTION 

Will you need the services of a boy this summer? Do you want a 
runner for your bank, a messenger, deliveryman, an apprentice, clerk? 
Why not come to the schools to get the kind of boy you need? By calling 
at the superintendent's office you can consult the school records and find 
the boy who knows how to spell, the boy who is "quick at figures," the 
boy who ''stays on the job" and behaves himself like a man while he is 
on it. You can see a specimen of any boy's handwriting whom you may 
think of employing. It will prove a double advantage if business and 
professional men who have occasion to employ boys will look to the 
schools to furnish them. 

(1) More efficient boys will be secured by employers. 

(2) Better work will be done in school by boys who expect future em- 
ployment. 

In the mean time business and professional men can do a great service 
to public education in Selma by encouraging boys to remain in school, 
by impressing upon boys that employers are looking to the schools to 
turn out efficient workers, and by employing only such boys as are through 
school or as are forced to leave school. Will you not use the schools when 
they can be of service to you? 

Vocational Guidance 

Are boys and girls able to support themselves when they leave school? 
Are children permitted to choose hfe work according to their personal 

fitness and tastes? 
Do children know about trade opportunities, or do they drift into 

"blind alley" trades? 
Are employers getting the right type of boys and girls? 
Are the schools training for industry, commerce, business? 

To answer these and a score of other questions, educators 
and economists have been studying the problems of voca- 
tional guidance and training from several points of view: 
industrial opportunities and demands; where training may 
be secured; what children want to do; placement and em- 
ployment bureaus; the schools' preparation for industry; 
and the need for special scholarships. In New York a com- 
mittee of the High School Teachers' Association has been 

297 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

working on the problem of vocational guidance for individual 
students in the schools. 

The Vocational Guidance Survey in New York, under the 
Public Education Association, aims to discover from a study 
of the children themselves — those who leave school at 
fourteen — what the schools are making of children, and why 
the children leave. Two typical elementary schools, one 
for girls and one for boys, have been chosen for an extensive 
investigation. The committee hopes eventually to be able 
to answer the questions: Do children have to go to work 
on account of economic pressure? Do they relieve this 
economic pressure by the kinds of work they can do? The 
study is bringing to light facts concerning working condi- 
tions, the attitude of the family to the child, the relation 
of work to previous training, wages received and what they 
are spent on, hours of work, opportunities for advancement, 
and changes of employment. On the basis of these returns 
it is hoped that practical conclusions will be reached about 
the kind of vocational guidance and training needed by 
children in each district. For information concerning this 
study, write to the Public Education Association, 281 
Fourth Avenue, New York. 

Boston has led other cities so far under the Vocation 
Bureau, the "inspirational center" for the later comers — 
the school board's committee on vocational guidance, the 
Boston Home and School Association, the Girls' Trade Edu- 
cation League, and the Woman's Municipal League — which 
are specializing on various phases of the vocational problem. 
By close cooperation among these agencies duplication of 
work has been avoided. 

Every month the Vocation Bureau issues in compact form 
little bulletins of information concerning trades for men and 
boys — the machinist, the baker, the landscape architect. 
Each includes a description of the trade, its pay, positions, 

298 









•fe %*';: 




aH^^HI 




BUSINESS MAN'S CONTRIBUTION 

and opportunities, the arrangements made for apprentices, 
the qualities demanded in the boy, comments from people 
in the trade and from the health board, a bibliography, and 
a list of schools which will fit the applicant for the occupa- 
tion. Over 100 vocations have been investigated, and the 
results made available for vocational counselors in the 
public schools and for parents and other advisers of youth 
and boys and men. 

To organize vocational counseling and personal work 
with individual children is the second purpose of the Voca- 
tion Bureau. Groups of teachers and parents must be trained 
and advised before they can themselves advise children and 
employers in special trades. So the Bureau maintains a 
course for counselors which also trains the teachers ap- 
pointed by the school board to give counsel in schools. 
Through the Vocation Bureau the board of education has 
been able to develop and spread its interest in this question. 
The Harvard Summer School offers a course of lectures 
under its department of education. Business men are co- 
operating through the Chamber of Commerce's advisory 
committee to the High School of Commerce. Mr. Meyer 
Bloomfield, the "prophet of vocational guidance," and the 
Vocation Bureau, 6 Beacon Street, stand ready to furnish 
suggestions and information to other cities and agencies. 

The Boston Home and School Association is asking parents 
what their educational and vocational ambitions are for 
their children, in order to discover whether or not parents 
are acting as intelligent counselors. 

The trade opportunities for girls between fourteen and 
eighteen years of age are being studied by the Girls' Trade 
Education League. Little pamphlets like those issued by 
the Vocation Bureau are published by the Vocation Office 
for Girls, 204 Boylston Street, Boston. Among them are 
bulletins on telephone operating, stenography, dressmaking, 

299 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

millinery, nursing, manicuring, and hairdressing. Actual 
placement in positions is also done by the vocation office. 

The latest summary of work by schools and outsiders for 
vocational guidance is found in the 26th Annual Report of 
the United States department of commerce and labor. 
Chapter XV of the section on industrial education is de- 
voted to vocational guidance. 

Any agency can give the initial push necessary to start its 
city to thinking about vocational problems by making pre- 
liminary trade investigations and bringing the matter before 
parents and teachers. In a small Massachusetts city a 
woman's club made a survey of trade and professional oppor- 
tunities, outlining from it a program for vocational guidance 
to be given by teachers. College women and men with 
training in economics have here an opportunity for using 
their sociological aptitude through a church, a settlement, 
or a teachers' and principals' association. Y. M. C. As. 
have long been giving advice to their members about trade 
and professional life. Some branches have secretaries whose 
entire time is devoted to this. 

Sooner or later all agencies interested in child welfare run 
against the question of children's futures and how we are 
preparing for them. A worker with groups of girls in high 
schools and upper grammar grades found herself being asked 
twice yearly before graduation time, ''What shall I do when 
I stop school?" and the worker who was supposed to teach 
athletics and hygiene and supervise recreation found her- 
self acting the part of vocational counselor without the 
information necessary to answer each girl intelligently. She 
knew nothing about trades open to women in her city, or 
about the working conditions and wages; yet in order to 
succeed in her work with these girls she must have these data. 
There can be no intelligent guidance in any city until 
somebody knows the facts. Interested men and women 

300 



BUSINESS MAN'S CONTRIBUTION 

can make surveys of trades in their city; arrange informal 
talks to teachers about the industries children will enter; 
give talks to boys leaving school; arrange visits to fac- 
tories and workshops ; show where the schools are not meeting 
business and trade needs; and act as vocational counselors 
to individual children through committees and boards. 

Many people see that a thorough psychological test for 
every child should be made before vocational guidance is 
given. As H. Addington Bruce has written: 

The business men of the United States are waking up to the great 
waste of national efficiency involved in the unguided selection of voca- 
tions by workers of the country, are themselves begimiing to test em- 
ployees by the rigid methods of psycho-physiological investigation, and 
are beginning to enforce a vocational change on those whose "reactions" 
indicate that they are not properly qualified for the work they have set 
out to do. 

Opportunities for Vocation Choosing in Schools 

The Women's Municipal League in Boston has approached 
vocational guidance with the question, ''Through what in- 
stitutions may training for the vocation once chosen by 
boys and girls be secured?" One of the League's standing 
committees has prepared charted lists of trade training op- 
portunities. This information has been made available to 
parents, teachers, and all those interested in giving voca- 
tional advice to boys and girls, by distributing the charts 
widely among schools, factories, and settlements in Boston 
and its vicinity. It is hoped thus to stimulate the children 
who had not before wished special training, for the charts 
show you where you can learn to become almost anything 
you want. If you need to take advanced courses to be a 
master carpenter, look at Chart II. If you wish to learn 
the first steps in millinery, look at Chart I. The third chart 
will tell just how commercial training may be secured in 

public and philanthropic schools. For the physically handi- 

301 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

capped — blind, deaf, and crippled children — the fourth chart 
shows just what are the organized opportunities enabling 
them also to get trade education. There is a special chart 
for professional schools, and another for institutions where 
art and music are taught. 

As shown on the opposite page, each chart gives the name 
of the school or institute, the age at which students are 
admitted, industries taught, supplementary work, special 
features, requirements for admission, what percentage of 
time goes to trade instruction and the length of the school 
season. Where schools require fees the amount for tuition 
is specified; if arrangements are made for placing students, 
this fact is noted. Special mention is made of whether the 
schools are for men or for women, or both, for boys or for 
girls, or whether they are evening or day schools. 

This valuable piece of work by an outside agency suggests 
an investigation needed in practically every city. When 
such a study shows that there is no place for a child to get 
trained to earn his living, it helps secure provision for trade 
training. The complete story of how the study was made, 
with facsimiles of the charts themselves, has been published 
in the U. S. report on industrial education mentioned before. 
Copies of the reprint and of the charts may be obtained 
from the Woman's Municipal League, 6 Beacon Street, 
Boston. They tell the details of methods used, how the 
interest of volunteer workers, experts, business men, and 
school officials was finally won. The School for Social 
Workers helped in making the investigation of special 
schools, this field work counting toward a certificate. 

How and Where to Look for Work 

Having chosen a vocation and prepared to enter it, the 
third step confronting each boy and girl is to secure a "job." 

302 



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BUSINESS MAN'S CONTRIBUTION 

For five years three agencies in Cincinnati — the school de- 
partment, the Child Labor Committee, and the Schmidlapp 
Fund — are going to study questions of vocational placing, of 
working certificates, of children's employment, and of the 
physical fitness of children for trades. The purpose is to 
enforce by practical cooperation the new child labor law, 
and the work is under Dr. Helen T. Woolley and five assist- 
ants who have an office in one of the high school buildings. 

Before any child under sixteen years of age may go to 
work without finishing the eighth grade he must pay a 
visit to Dr. Woolley, get a certificate as to his learning, his 
health, and the necessity for his earnings in the family 
budget. Psychological tests of these children have shown 
that waste of time and effort by employers, parents, and 
children will be prevented when, for example, a girl who is 
by nature inaccurate and careless does not try for positions 
which require accuracy of eye and hand. Each of the 2,000 
boys and girls who come up to the tests for working capacity 
the first year registers where he is going to be employed. 
When he changes his position he comes back to Dr. Woolley 
for a new certificate. 

Besides collecting evidence about the wages paid to 
children by employers, the same office, known as the child 
labor division of the public schools, makes every effort to 
see that the child labor law is enforced and to prevent em- 
ployment in forbidden trades by enlisting the cooperation 
of truant officers and factory inspectors. 

A special study was begun in March, 1911, of some 650 
children, who at fourteen left school and went regularly 
to work. For several years this group of children will 
be watched and compared with children who remained in 
school until they were sixteen and then worked. For both 
groups, school histories, results of physical examinations and 
psychological tests, industrial histories, notes on home and 

303 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

working conditions, are all being recorded. This study will 
show whether it pays children to stop school when they are 
fourteen, whether extra years of school enable them to 
earn more when they do go to work, whether the present 
elementary school course prepares children for the vocations 
they enter most frequently, and what tests are needed to 
determine the most suitable work for each child. For copies 
of form cards and the results of the first year's test, write to 
the child labor division, Cincinnati Public Schools. 

''The Three Rs" 

Intelligent interest, not wholly altruistic, is being shown 
in business men's criticism of the schools' product. By 
pointing out necessary changes in course of study and method 
of teaching the business man has been of great service to the 
school. In Kearney, for example, the superintendent wrote : 
"Last year the leading manufacturing concerns were asked 
to criticize the product of our schools and to make sugges- 
tions how to remedy any faults or defects in our teaching. 
These letters brought startling replies. The manufacturers 
were unanimous in their opinion that the school work in the 
'three Rs' was not thorough and adecjuate. Through this 
valuable criticism, placed before our principals as a cabinet, 
we formulated entirely new plans, which have resulted in 
most gratifying improvements." 

From numerous employers of many boys, and from organ- 
izations of business men, comes a consensus of opinion that 
our schools need radical changes. If business men combine 
in daring to show where the schools are not "making good," 
they should also, so some people say, give credit to new 
employees who have certificates of special proficiency. One 
principal has argued that employers, like colleges that an- 
nounce requirements for admission, should tell what sub- 

304 



BUSINESS MAN'S CONTRIBUTION 

jects they consider essential for success in business and what 
extra training they think desirable: 

Business men should show that schoohng has value in business life. 
Then children will not be going to school with the feeling that they are 
only marking time until they get jobs, but pupils will work at school in 
the realization that education is a tool with which they can open the door 
leading to business success. 

Business men and large taxpayers are the schools' most 
important patrons; for when actively enough displeased with 
what the schools are doing the taxpayers have the power 
to stop the schools. The tests of efficiency in the "three Rs" 
are easily made by asking a representative number of 
children to read, write, and do sums in arithmetic. One 
business man can collect from his associates a large amount 
of information about employees who have spent months, even 
years, in learning how to add and spell and obey orders. 
Confronted by this evidence, the burden of proof is on 
the schools. 

Here is a specimen of the scholarship of a boy of fifteen, 
American born and bred, who had been promoted to the 
grade of 8-A, the highest but one in New York's grammar 
schools, as written from dictation: 

They attenmed no raush gast, therefor, at that stage of the prublem. 
'Boys also out teacher said, ' like to have it, ' Thought, when it get into 
a boy poctey, I belived it is oftened say to burned a hold there. Instinly 
twelty out stretch hand indecake an idle demaning utterans in twelty 
head 'if you pleas 'sir' I know what it is' 'Well, what is it?' 'a pice of 
cold?' 

Here is the same passage ''corrected," the teacher spelling 
out each word dictated, the pupil writing his version of the 
spelled-out dictation: 

They attented no rash gess, therefore at that stage of the problem. 
'Boys also our 'teacher said' like to have it' thought when it get into 

305 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

a boy potct, I bclive it is often said to bruned a hold there, Instlanej' 
twolty outstretch hand indicate an idle 'If you pleas sir' 'I know what 
it is' 'Well what is it' 'A pice of cold? 

Will you make a "rash guess" at what the teacher dic- 
tated? 

Wasted Capital, Non-Promotion 

It is often argued that school work cannot be judged by 
monetary standards, that tests of efficiency in teaching and 
school administration are not possible because of educa- 
tional values which are not measurable; yet ultimately every 
detail of school work comes under the budget test : Is it worth 
while, measured by opportunity and result, to spend what is 
being spent, more, or less for each object in the school's 
program? School expenses are measurable on a child-hour 
basis. 

One of the greatest wastes of school money comes with 
the necessity for giving to thousands of children every year 
the same instruction, the same textbooks, and the same 
tests that they had the year before. Superintendent Elson 
of Cleveland has estimated that one-eighth of the money 
spent on education goes to pay for repetition, maladjust- 
ment, and the failure to see the needs of school children and 
their interests. 

Recent studies stimulated by the United States bureau 
of education, the Bureau of Municipal Research, the Russell 
Sage Foundation, and many individual superintendents have 
focused the attention of schoolmen and outsiders on the 
problem of non-promotion and its causes. It is necessary 
first to find the retarded children, those who, for some reason 
or other, have been checked in their normal rate of progress 
through school. 

How far from easy it is to discover overage children, many 
school reports prove. Here ages for this year are used with 

306 



BUSINESS MAN'S CONTRIBUTION 

grades for next year. The result is that thousands of chil- 
dren who need special attention are never found. An Effi- 
cient Citizenship bulletin by the Bureau of Municipal Re- 
search shows that a child may fail four times in succession 
and not be considered ''overage." 

In comparatively few cities are written statements re- 
quired from teachers at promotion time telling why each 
child has not been passed on to another grade. The causes 
given include irregular attendance, lack of attention, poor 
home conditions, and large classes. All of these causes are 
remediable, and most of the remedies are in the hands of 
school officials. Catch-up classes enable children to make 
their grades at the last minute. Summer schools enable 
unpromoted children to enter with their class in the fall. 
Parents can be warned in advance, as in Elyria, Marl- 
borough, Flint, etc., by a regular form letter, and asked to 
see that children do better. 

In terms of how school money shall be spent, are we to 
pay more money for more teachers if the teachers we have 
are not efficient? Are we to increase the staff of attendance 
officers, if truant officers are not doing what they might? 
Is it worth while having 50,000 children clog up the regular 
courses of the school, when money spent on teachers of 
special "opportunity" or ungraded classes would let normal 
and extra-bright children go ahead faster? How" much 
money is wasted when children are repeating sometimes 
three years in succession the same grade of work? In terms 
of discouragement to the children and ennui to the teachers, 
preventable retardation is inexcusable. When you consider 
that the problem affects a million children each year in the 
United States and $60,000,000 of wasted captal, can you 
deny that it is worthy the attention of business men? For 
questions, blanks, and information, write to the United 
States bureau of education; the Bureau of Municipal Re- 

21 307 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

search, 261 Broadway; or to the Russell Sage Foundation, 
1 Madison Avenue, New York. 

As Superintendent Elson says, positive data about fail- 
ures must serve as a basis for administrative changes. Many 
superintendents all over the country are evolving ways and 
means of coping with retardation, like departmental teach- 
ing of sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, or ungraded schools 
where promotion takes place just as rapidly as the child 
is through with a subject. In dealing with the problem of 
retardation, sooner or later you will be brought in contact 
with nearly every detail of school administration, equip- 
ment, teaching, health, and recreation. Superintendent 
Morton of Marlborough says in his last report, "Every child 
saved from repeating, and every child accelerated without 
lowering the standard of brain development or the vitality 
of the child, represents a saving to the city of approximately 
$30; to the home at least $100, and to the individual child 
in confidence in his own ability to achieve, in more knowl- 
edge, greater power to meet the problems of life, and a longer 
period of productive activity — a value that cannot be esti- 
mated in money." 

Talks in School on Business Success 

There is perhaps no simpler way for the average business 
man to cooperate with public schools than to tell groups of 
school boys about business, and what is necessary to achieve 
success in business. There are many things that a boy 
needs to know, things which will have more effect coming 
from one who is in the field than from a teacher. Mr. G. 
H. F. Schrader, the apostle of Pay Public Schools who 
used to employ hundreds of men and boys in his factories and 
business houses, felt so distinctly this need that he published 
and circulated widely a little pamphlet entitled Business 

308 



BUSINESS MAN'S CONTRIBUTION 

Advice for Boys. This booklet of "dos"'and ^'don'ts" in- 
cludes talks on ''The Employee," ''The Start in Business," 
"Buying and Selling," "A Man Fails in Business Through 
His Own Fault." 

Members of school boards or local boards can arrange to 
have friends talk in high and upper grammar schools, to 
have meetings in the evening which discuss business oppor- 
tunities, and to connect these talks with the need of voca- 
tional guidance as felt in each school. 

Talks are sometimes arranged, as in Carlisle, by a civic 
club of women, and in Cleveland through social center 
evening meetings in the schools. Weekly lectures by busi- 
ness men are given in the high school in Greenville, and in 
Portland, Oregon, representative business men are occa- 
sionally asked on patriotic days to make addresses to chil- 
dren. Here also the Commercial Club once a year calls 
for volunteers to speak in schools for fifteen minutes on 
matters pertaining to business careers. "There have always 
been enough speakers." Children are also asked to help 
the Commercial Club "boom" the town by writing letters 
to eastern friends describing the advantages of Oregon. 

Have not you as a business man something valuable to 
tell boys in school about: 

The three qualities necessary for business success, 

Recognizing an opportunity, 

The boy who makes extra effort, 

How the new office boy is likely to fail, 

What the average employer wants. 

The opportunities waiting for boys in business? 

Men who are interested in civic affairs, politicians, heads 
of city departments, bankers, wholesale and retail dealers, 
may do a great deal by presenting problems to civic classes, 
recreation center groups, at opening exercises or evening 

309 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

meetings. Boys' clubs, Y. M. C. As., debating societies, 
teachers, and principals are glad to have offers from speakers. 

School Savings Banks 

Training future depositors in habits of thrift is becoming 
part of the legitimate work of the modern Savings and Loan 
Association. In Corning a juvenile annex of the Savings 
Loan Association was organized. In another city an arrange- 
ment with the Postal Savings Bank was made by a prominent 
drygoods merchant who took out cards at the initial amounts 
for 1,500 children, white and black. These boys and girls 
became independent depositors as soon as their pennies 
amounted to fifty cents. Prizes were offered at stated inter- 
vals for the largest accounts entered in bank books. The 
bank in P. S. 77 in New York is like a real bank with an ad- 
visory board of schoolmen, bankers, professors, and a 
member of the local school board. Occasionally banks are 
run by the pupils themselves in connection with their arith- 
metic work. 

The idea of school savings banks was developed in Amer- 
ica by Mr. J. H. Thiry, of Long Island, who, to encourage 
economy and thrift in schools, introduced the first bank in 
1885. They now exist in nearly 2,000 schools, with savings 
amounting to over $5,000,000, and in New York the board 
of education has appointed a special committee to see that 
banks are started in every school. The advantages of saving, 
of learning so early the mechanism of banking, are indis- 
putable; so are also moral issues which hinge oni knowledge 
of money values and on habits of saving. 

Women's clubs have sometimes taken the initiative in 
banking schemes. The Civic Improvement League in 
Kalamazoo has a savings collector who has offered to intro- 
duce systematic savings throughout all the schools. The 

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BUSINESS MAN'S CONTRIBUTION 

Social Service League of Middletown has a penny provident 
fund with 140 depositors in the schools. 

Outside enthusiasm, however, cannot take the place of 
continuous interest and cooperation on the part of teachers 
and principals. They are the ones who make or mar a 
savings system. As a director and adviser especially, the 
outsider gives valuable cooperation. 

School Legislation 

Every year so many bills come up before state legislatures 
that supporters are torn to pieces trying to ^^ father" them 
all, and the concentrated backing necessary to secure 
passage cannot be given. Health bills, charity bills, civil 
service bills take the attention of those citizens most inter- 
ested in educational measures. And it takes so long to get 
measures through! Perhaps it is a good thing that legis- 
lation is such hard work for the supporters of bills, otherwise 
our schools would be law-bound in every detail. 

There are, however, certain fundamental laws which are 
important to the outsider interested in schools. 

Has your state a compulsory education law? 

If so, are adequate attendance officers provided for enforcing it? 

Is there any provision by law for having a school census taken? 

Has your state a minimum salary provision for teachers? 

Is there a law demanding certain requirements before teachers may be 
licensed? 

Does equal merit receive equal pay, whether in men or in women? 

Is medical examination for physical defects made permissive? com- 
pulsory? 

Is the state appropriation adequate for school purposes? 

Is the board of education too large? paid or unpaid? commission 
form? 

Is there a state law making expenditure permissible for industrial 
training? recreation centers? dental clinics? playgrounds? 

311 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

A committee of business men or women or a public edu- 
cation association can act as the concentrating force in a 
legislative publicity campaign, to keep the good citizens 
from scattering their interest on ten different bills and con- 
sequently missing fire on all. Some central agency must 
send out the call for letters to senators and assemblymen, 
must keep the newspapers supplied with copy, use facts 
from other cities and states, get up public meetings, and ar- 
range to have delegates at the state capital. Such a body, 
well known, non-partisan, with a fact foundation for argu- 
ments, is the magnet for much wavering interest among 
individual citizens. 

Several civic clubs can justly claim a part in the passage 
of new school codes. The parent-teacher associations of 
Chicago and Illinois, cooperating with the principals' club, 
secured double the state appropriation for schools. This 
meant writing to legislators, distributing literature on the 
subject broadcast, and sending speakers throughout the 
state. The story of a state legislative campaign carried on 
by the women of Michigan is told on page 188. In Kansas 
City a committee of the Athenaeum had bills for compulsory 
education and a library commission framed by competent 
lawyers. All members wrote to their representatives in the 
house and senate. The chairman of the committee spoke 
before the legislature and "stayed at Jefferson City until 
the bills passed." The Public School Alliance of New Or- 
leans secures general discussion of school legislation through 
the press. 

What an outside agency may do for school legislation is 
told in the report of the Massachusetts Civic League, 3 Joy 
Street, Boston. When the law for compulsory medical in- 
spection was before the legislature this committee made a 
thorough study of systems in other cities and developed a 
large committee of superintendents, physicians, and others 

312 



BUSINESS MAN'S CONTRIBUTION 

interested in the question throughout the state. Each 
member acted as a separate agitation center for his com- 
munity. A bill was prepared and steered securely through the 
legislature "because everybody believed in it and there was 
no substantial opposition." Legislation for school nurses, 
playgrounds, and for a smaller school board has been sup- 
ported intensively and continuously by this organization. 
The motto of the League tells concisely what it aims to be: 

A lens to focus public opinion 

A live wire of the public will 

It will make half an hour of your time tell in social results. 

School Voters' Leagues 

Who should be a school commissioner? 

What should he know? 

How do former commissioners rank according to the opportunity they 

had? 
What should the public know about school candidates or appointees? 

Once a city standard is set firmly in the public con- 
sciousness of what a commissioner should know and do, and 
how he may know and do it, the appointment of men and 
women who do not come up to the standard is made more 
difficult. The School Voters' League, 184 Boylston Street, 
Boston, aims to study the candidates for office and the ad- 
ministration of the public schools of Boston, to bring the 
results to the attention of the public, and to assist in electing 
suitable persons to the school committee. This is done by 
organizing the vote on school matters, by serving as a bureau 
of information, and by distributing among members publica- 
tions and leaflets which state facts about the school prob- 
lems that commissioners must solve, such as large classes 
and teachers' pensions. By this method the usual slump in 
public interest between school elections is avoided and an 

313 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

intelligently trained constituency brings to bear on candi- 
dates its forces of information. 

It ought to be impossible for any school voter to avoid 
knowing what the position of school commissioner demands. 
Voters' leagues tell the truth about the requirements of the 
office, and the amount done by those last in office. They 
are able, by keeping all agencies informed throughout the 
year, to point the way for wise choices on the part of par- 
ents' associations and other organizations. Any judgments 
about candidates must, of course, be non-partisan, based 
on facts, on a record of former service, or on tests of ability 
to meet special problems. Wlien everybody agrees what a 
commissioner should know and do there will be more 
unanimity of opinion on what a commissioner should be. 
Everybody will at least have a chance to agree if a central 
body, like a Voters' League, uses press, magazines, pulpits, 
civic agencies, and its own members to tell the truth about 
school problems and how commissioners now in office are 
living up to their pledges. 

When the Philadelphia school board was reorganized the 
Public Education Association brought out five qualifications 
which it considered indispensable for candidates, but these 
dealt with what candidates should believe, not what they 
should know. In Ridgewood a committee of delegates 
from the woman's club and the men's Voters' League ar- 
ranges for the school election by mass meetings and concen- 
trated support on the desired candidate. 

If the question of bond issues for buildings comes up, 
or of budget increases for school improvements, a Voters' 
League can turn its guns of fact on the electors. As long as 
the public is allowed by school officials and outside agencies to 
remain in blissful ignorance about school facts and the mean- 
ing of routine administrative actions, just so long will school 
elections be fraudulent and school funds misapioropriated. 

314 



BUSINESS MAN'S CONTRIBUTION 

Any agency interested in schools can make school elec- 
tions mean something, can make it hard for totally unfit 
commissioners to be appointed, and can change school 
meetings and town sessions about school funds from a farce 
into a power. Organizations of business men, like the City 
Clubs in New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, have, through 
their meetings and discussions and through the varied in- 
terests they represent, an opportunity to keep the public 
awake before election and budget times and to pass judg- 
ment impartially on school commissioners. 

Business Men as School Commissioners 

Several recent magazine articles have noted the growing 
interest of college students in civic, municipal, and political 
reform. Is it safe to conjecture that not once in any reform 
league program is mentioned the question of school ad- 
ministration? The man with a college degree or business 
training has an opportunity through numerous agencies 
outside the school to fit himself for efficient service later on 
as a school commissioner. Why should it be necessary for a 
man to spend six months after his appointment to the school 
board in finding out what the mechanism of the school 
system is? One man, recently appointed to a board, in 
answer to our questions about what sort of cooperation the 
schools had received from outsiders, said: ''I am not yet 
very familiar with the work of this board or any of the 
questions you mention. The board is made of nine busy, 
if not business, men serving without pay." Statements 
like this are great arguments against unpaid boards of 
education. 

The standard for service on school boards was brought 
up at a recent charter hearing in New York when the plan 
for a paid board of education was under fire. It was stated 

315 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

over and over again that there is a wealth of willing service 
from business men ready at the call of the schools. Criti- 
cisms of the "willing service" rendered by the board then 
in office showed clearly how far it was from coming up to 
the standard of what is fit service for public schools. Whether 
commissioners number five or 50, are elected or appointed, 
is not as significant as whether the public knows that com- 
missioners are or are not using their powers and oppor- 
tunities. The following description of the powers held by 
school board members in New York was made by the 
Bureau of Municipal Research when a commissioner resigned 
because he "could not get information" about the schools. 

As a member of the board of education, Mr. (1) received minutes 

of the meetings of the board of superintendents, (2) received monthly 
reports of attendance and register for all schools by districts, (3) was 
specifically given the power to inspect the results of examinations, (4) had 
power to examine all the original books, reports, and records of the de- 
partment of education to the fullest extent. 

As a member of a local school board Mr. 's power to secure in- 
formation and to affect standards of efficiency was very broad. He had 
the power to inspect the schools of his district, which, as stated in the 
charter, means to require information from those schools with respect 
to: Attendance of pupils, punctual and regular attendance of teachers 
(irregular attendance is cited as one cause of non-promotion), the fidelity 
of teachers, progress of pupils, ventilation of school rooms, efficiency of 
teachers, wants of his district, dereliction of duty on the part of the 
superintendent of supplies, superintendent of school buildings, the city 
superintendent, or any of their deputies or assistants, or the employees in 
their respective departments, facts relating to discipfine, etc. He could 
have made charges of dereliction. 

Unwieldy boards out of touch with details of school 
work are not unavoidable. Should not every college man, 
for example, in preparation for board service, be confronted 
with school problems as part of his general education? 
Once on a board, realizing as they must their own lack 
of preparation, commissioners seem to feel little responsi- 

316 



BUSINESS MAN'S CONTRIBUTION 

bility for training other men to take their places. This 
is shown by the mild interest displayed by board members 
themselves, when cooperation has been offered by business 
men. From one city we heard that the ^' board does not 
welcome help offered by business men." The ''not" is 
emphatically underscored. In another city it is thought 
that the board would welcome the business men. In a 
third the business men's cooperation has never been asked 
for, while in a fourth the school authorities seemed ''quite 
indifferent." On the other hand, a story from Portland, 
Oregon, tells of business men at board meetings where 
their criticisms were solicited. "They look on the matter 
as a family affair, and gladly discuss pro and con all ques- 
tions concerning the administration of their district." 

In deciding what standard should be held for a school 
commissioner it has been found occasionally that a certain 
type of business may keep a man from service, however 
efficient he may be. From a southern city a gentleman 
who served for years on the school board and brought 
into the system many good things asks us not to use his 
name because "most educators will not be reconciled with 
any phase of the brewing traffic with which I am connected. 
My interest in the movement you have in mind might 
estrange some valuable workers." 

In the 500 largest cities between 4,000 and 5,000 men 
and women are now having the privilege of giving service 
on school boards. In the next ten years probably 12,000 
men and women will have a chance to better conditions 
in their cities by service on school boards. WiU the most 
be made of these opportunities? 

The Business Man and the School Budget 

"It has always seemed to me an absurdity that citi- 
zens should be willing to invest $110,000 in a business and 

317 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

then not show the least interest as to how that money was 
expended," writes a superintendent. 

One advantage of an organization of business men which 
has a standing committee on school affairs is that when 
something comes up which is over the heads of the average 
citizen, the committee can interpret facts to the public 
and guide public opinion through informed leadership. 
By vitalizing and popularizing the school budget when it 
is being discussed by the city officials an organization 
of business men can perhaps do more good for schools than 
in any other way. 

When is the budget voted? Is your school budget classified? 

Is it possible for the board of education to use money voted, for ex- 
ample, for open air classes, to increase salaries? 

Are the supplies inspected by a central office? 

On what records are increases in the number of teachers and buildings 
figured? 

How is it possible to find out what provision should be made for new 
pupils next year? 

Is there part time in one section of the city and vacant room in other 
sections? 

Are teachers of special branches doing work which can be done by 
regular classroom teachers? 

Is the school budget explained in the press so the town understands it? 

In your judgment has adequate money been asked this year for build- 
ings, salaries, equipment, special activities, industrial training, 
night schools, physical training, playgrounds? 

Is there any public hearing on the school budget? 

How many business men attend? 

How many speak? 

The New York city budget is voted in October. The 
estimates are due from departments the preceding May. 
The Brooklyn League, a business men's organization, has 
its suggestions for next year's needs before the board of 
education in February. To influence the school budget 
cooperating agencies have found it important to begin 

318 



BUSINESS MAN'S CONTRIBUTION 

work with the board of education before its estimate is 
decided on. After the board has made up its mind all the 
arguments and talk in the world will not help, probably. 
Then the money voting body must be convinced that the 
town knows what it is talking about when it stands for a 
dental clinic or a vocational school. This can only result 
from convincing the town that advocacy is based on facts. 

The average remarks about the school budget show that 
there is probably less intelligent interest in this subject 
than in any other you can conveniently mention, yet edu- 
cators and philanthropists are surely coming to realize 
that fundamental understanding of schools is impossible 
without efficient school expenditures. To see how exten- 
sive is the interest of business men in budgets we asked a 
question about hearings on budgets and the business man's 
interest and participation in them. It was brought out 
in the returns that in only 10% of the cities answering was 
there any sort of public budget hearing. In 14 cities only 
out of 135 do business men speak of attending and par- 
ticipating in discussions about next year's school appro- 
priation. 

The lack of intelligent budget interest from men whose 
personal business is run efficiently has been variously and 
fairly explained: "The town is liberal, no controversy has 
come up with regard to the school budget which will de- 
mand a hearing." "Town finances, which include the school 
finances, are accepted in open meeting. Men do not 
participate." "There are discussions on the school esti- 
mate, and they are open, but citizens do not take part." 
Three comments from one city show how variously a single 
fact may be reported: (1) "The annual town meeting is 
quite well attended by those especially interested in edu- 
cation"; (2) "Annual meeting of taxpayers to levy the tax 
is on the basis of a New England town meeting, which has 

319 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

long since failed to be a useful institution"; and (3) ''The 
taxpayers' meeting is very much of a farce. Only about 
a hundred people attend." 

At the annual taxpayers' hearings in New York the ses- 
sion on schools is attended largely. Representatives from 
the Public Education Association and taxpayers' asso- 
ciations, as well as teachers' and principals' organizations, 
speak. The outside cooperating agencies usually defend 
increases necessary to take in socialized activities as part 
of the school system. Those speaking for the taxpayers' 
association usually object to increased school appro- 
priation for any purpose whatever, and the consideration 
of schools as "eleemosynary institutions." At one lively 
hearing a few years ago a board of trade protested strongly 
against several items necessitated by so-called ''fads and 
frills." Only in this way could business men effectively 
express their unanimous criticism of the curriculum which 
was neglecting the "three Rs." 

Who will not agree that any one thinking or speaking or 
writing about budgets should honestly and intelligently 

Oppose added appropriations which are not supported by facts proving 

the value of suggested improvements; 
Show where, if at all, the funds necessary for improvements may be 

secured by doing away with present waste and incompetence in the 

city's business; 
Base their support of budget increases on specific information which 

has been made available and significant to the public? 



XIII 

HOW SUPERINTENDENTS USE COOPERATION ASSETS 

The Kind and Amount of Outside Interest 

"nniME and again," writes the professor of education in 
1 a large university, "I have been exasperated at the 
slowness with which city superintendents of schools respond 
to outside suggestions." 

Each superintendent has a different mechanism to work 
with, according to the size and wealth of the town, the pro- 
gressiveness of taxpayers, the number of volunteer organ- 
izations, the kind of people who make them up, particular 
school needs and school problems. There are towns and 
citizens, it is true, whose assistance does not seem to have 
any value whatever, but men and women of vision are real- 
izing that the school's opportunity for usefulness includes 
more than the education of boys and girls from six to six- 
teen years of age. What the school can give the town is 
perhaps not a fair exchange for what the town can give the 
school, but keeping outsiders informed on school matters 
has become just as much a part of logical school work as 
the printed curriculum. Citizens as intelligent, thinking, 
public-spirited individuals need to know how their school 
taxes are spent and what sort of education they are forcing 
on the city's children. Organizations of men and women 
need to know what definite next steps remain to be taken 
in school improvement. Individual workers, especially 

women of leisure, need to see the opportunities for social 

321 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

service through pubHc schools. The superintendent is the 
man to make all this clear. The more hopelessly apathetic 
the public, the more noteworthy his success. 

A progressive superintendent may be hampered by an 
over-conservative board ; another may have had unfortunate 
experiences with outside ''interference"; a superintendent 
in a new town thinks, perhaps, that he has no outside 
mechanism with which to work, while there may be a fourth 
who dreads the publicity which outside assistance in new 
movements seems to entail. One schoolman, after strug- 
gling for three years in a city where almost all the parents 
commute to their work, has finally succeeded in interesting 
fathers and mothers in school problems. He writes that 
both schools and teachers are receiving fresh impulse for 
better work; and while he believes that only the "super- 
intendents are able to diagnose their own cases and furnish 
remedies," in the same letter he describes ways of winning 
parents' interest which are suggestive for all other cities 
of about the same size. 

How far from universal is outside interest in schools, 
statements like these show: 

Our people do not give any special attention to any school matters. 
It has never been customary for outside agencies to give much assist- 
ance in the administration of schools. 

In some cities the superintendent seems to be prac- 
tically isolated as far as interest in education is concerned. 
Take as an illustration a northwestern town whose popu- 
lation has doubled itself in ten years. The problem of 
securing enough rooms and desks for the extra children 
is so pressing that it leaves little money^ for progressive 
steps. No outside help, limited appropriations, a con- 
servative board — this is the situation which one man must 
meet alone and is meeting with splendid success. 

322 




SCIENTIFIC FARMS FOR HIGH SCHOOL BOYS! FAIR GROUNDS: BOISE 




MODEL home: CHILDREN-MADE FURNISHINGS: LOUISIANA STATE FAIR 
HELPING SCHOOLS SOLVE LOCAL PROBLEMS 



USE OF COOPERATION ASSETS 

Another superintendent comes from an eastern school 
where "good things" are already part of the system. He 
finds in the west a busy, individualistic community rather 
lacking in public spirit. He may not bother to ask whether 
there is a woman's club of some sort — yet here is his oppor- 
tunity. From Wyoming a superintendent wrote: "I should 
like the statement showing the way in which volunteer 
bodies have been an aid to the schools. I think I shall 
have to say that, as far as our own schools are concerned, 
nothing of the sort has been undertaken in our city." To 
our question as to whether there were not individuals or 
organizations which might be interested in school work, 
the answer came: "There is a civic league composed of 
ladies. I think the main lack in this organization is that 
they are not quite well informed as to the best line to 
proceed. I should be glad to have you send here the literature 
as to what civic leagues may do for the benefit of schools." 

A fourth picture is given by the composite letters of a 
half-dozen superintendents who feel that there is no need 
of any cooperation except from their school boards. "We 
do not need any help in this direction. Our board is alive 
to all good things, and needs no stimulus in this matter." 
But when the personnel of these boards changes the school- 
men will be without friends, perhaps, and the advance 
steps dear to their hearts must wait until they can convince 
new boards of their value. One city congratulates itself 
that "We always have progressive boards that provide 
all these necessary things." A superintendent writes that 
the board had not been disposed to appeal to or encourage 
expression of citizen interest, nor had it been especially 
enthusiastic about the formation of parent-teacher associa- 
tions; yet this same superintendent mentions in his letter 
eight definite needs, all of which outside agencies in other 
cities have helped their school boards meet. 

22 ■ 323 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

The majority of boards of education, however, reahze 
the advantages to be gained . through organizations outside 
the school system. From Portsmouth we hear that ''there 
is the broadest, fullest, most complete cooperation between 
citizens, board, and teachers on practically all matters." 
In Racine the board initiates, "but there is much help 
from citizens." Some superintendents have made their 
boards realize that no community can afford to let volun- 
teer, unofficial organizations be out of touch with schools. 
Superintendent Young of Chicago has written that it is 
quite impossible to put into writing what the schools of 
her city owe to outside help because they are constantly 
being aided in this way. Andrew S. Draper, commissioner 
of education in New York state, wrote that he could not 
treat the matter of civic cooperation satisfactorily without 
preparing an elaborate paper. Yet it is interesting to 
note that out of 315 superintendents only 111 plan to 
mention or have mentioned outside help in their annual 
reports, and that in most school reports the brief discussion 
of civic cooperation is formal and perfunctory. Officially, 
cooperation does not seem to be considered such a tre- 
mendously big asset. 

The personality of the superintendent is another factor 
in determining the extent of cooperation and the attitude 
of school officials toward outside assistance. The man who 
does not deal successfully with people may nevertheless be 
able to get results by suggesting, planning, and outlining 
programs for work by outside organizations. 

Everything before this chapter describes potential assets 
for the school man and woman, whether high up or at 
the beginning of a career. Take as one concrete illustra- 
tion the opportunity for cooperation offered for 50 children 
with physical defects, which, though removable, cause 50 
non-promotions. The assistance of a clinic or private 

324 



USE OF COOPERATION ASSETS 

physician at the beginning of the year will save the $30 
apiece which would be spent on those children to no 
advantage, as well as the larger sum lost because of the 
dragging down of 30 other children by each of the 50 de- 
fectives. The hospital or physician is glad to do the neces- 
sary work if the superintendent will find and send the 
children. When the mechanism is once started, a hospital- 
school relation, like most outside cooperation, will run 
itself. The $1,000,000 spent for school children in New 
York by volunteer, unofficial agencies, the $10,000,000 
estimate for the United States, could be doubled and 
trebled this year, were each superintendent, principal, and 
teacher to make the most of cooperation assets. 

A Standard for Cooperation 

Because the attitudes of superintendents toward civic 
cooperation are so diverse, and because school needs vary 
in every locality, and because the mechanism of outside 
organizations is never the same in two cities, it is desirable 
here to emphasize the factors which do not vary in the re- 
lation of schools and communities. One such is a nation- 
wide standard of what constitutes efficient helpfulness. 
There is no reason why a superintendent should tolerate 
what was meant to be help but is really interference from 
those outside the system. In one western city a mothers' 
club was formed, ostensibly to work with schools. For 
lack of a program it became side-tracked on personal scan- 
dals, upset things generally, and made itself a decided 
nuisance. It might have been possible to direct the same 
energy into useful channels. 

The time is not far off when superintendents will feel 
free to criticize and set a value on the cooperation offered 
them, and when outsiders will see that donating services 

325 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

and material gifts which are not wanted is, after all, not 
exactly efficient community service. Fearing that co- 
operation will be unproductive, the superintendent is 
mildly grateful for, or receives coolly, any expression of 
interest. When asked directly, most superintendents will 
suggest, guide, or propose; otherwise they are apt to take 
what comes without comment. 

A second factor which does not vary in outside coopera- 
tion is the advisability of having the superintendent always 
just a little ahead, of having him initiate and stimulate 
constantly, no matter what the line of work. A superin- 
tendent, for example, asked permission to speak before 
a dental society about a clinic for school children. This 
put in motion a mechanism which later brought about the 
dental examination of all children and a system of treat- 
ment. In Seattle, at the suggestion of the superintendent, 
a committee of seven women was appointed from the fed- 
erated women's clubs to act as a standing advisory body 
for the city schools. 

Nevertheless, with all the initiative in the world, the 
schoolman who has not provided for keeping outside or- 
ganizations continually informed about what he is doing 
and wants to do is in a worse predicament than is the 
outside organization trying to cooperate without con- 
sulting the superintendent, or without having actual con- 
tact with the school situation. Once upon a time a certain 
woman's club wanted to do something nice for the schools. 
The members did not take the trouble to inform them- 
selves about the schools' needs, but with enthusiasm started 
a kindergarten that was eventually to be taken over by 
the public school system. A few months later the club dis- 
covered that a kindergarten was quite unnecessary in that lo- 
cation. The whole project fell through, and the kindergar- 
ten idea was discredited in the city for some time afterward. 

326 



USE OF COOPERATION ASSETS 

Until superintendents realize the assets which exist in 
volunteer organizations, and until they see the advantage 
of taking the initiative and setting a standard for efficient 
cooperation, women's clubs will fail to see the larger oppor- 
tunities for helpfulness, and will still pat themselves on 
the back with the self-congratulatory phrase, *'We have 
taken a great step in the direction of improving the health 
of the school children," after getting one drinking fountain 
put into one school. We shall go on having parents who, 
after visiting school once a year on patrons' day to see an 
exhibit of children's work, feel that their entire duty has 
been done and that they are living examples of everybody's 
vital interest in education. 

The standard for efficient cooperation will seldom be 
completely attained. Is it too much to ask, however, 
that superintendents and outsiders see 100% of each prob- 
lem or section of the problem undertaken; that the public 
be kept informed until the experiment — if it is an experi- 
ment — has been proved of value and the school authorities 
have shown themselves able to carry on the work adequately 
and thoroughly? 

Foundling experiments left on school boards' door steps 
without extra provision in the family budget are doubtful 
benefits. 

Utilizing outside assets and keeping them up to the 
mark has been considered important enough by some state 
departments of education, as we have seen in Tennessee. 
Some superintendents are making a point of developing 
outside cooperation, and most of them are aware of at 
least some of the benefits potentially theirs. Private or- 
ganizations are also working out methods of cooperation, 
and some of these at least have seen the full opportunity 
for efficient school work. 

327 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

Have you as a superintendent listed organizations in your city which 
are already or might possibly be in touch with the schools? 

If no such organizations exist, are there individuals with special in- 
terest in health, sanitation, playgrounds, music, or art who might 
act as nuclei for outside assistance? 

Have you ever tried to tell the chamber of commerce how it could help 
you? the woman's club? the medical society? 

Do you state in any school document what ten things the schools need 
most? 



XIV 

NOT-YET-GRASPED OPPORTUNITIES 

The United States Bureau of Education 

"nPHE bureau should be the servant of all states to work 
1 out any problem and make the results available for 
all." So spoke Commissioner P. P. Claxton when out- 
lining, at the St. Louis meeting of the N. E. A. department 
of superintendence, his program for the increased use- 
fulness of the federal office. The United States bureau 
has an immense, immediate, and continuous field for its 
service — already 20,000,000 children and 550,000 teachers 
in common schools, besides those in universities, colleges, 
normal schools and technical institutions. This vast array 
of individuals the bureau has power to help in any way 
its ridiculously small appropriation of $75,000 permits. 
Up to the present its activities have been chiefly in col- 
lecting and publishing data on a wide range of subjects 
which bear on education. These uniform pamphlets are 
available for any one on application, free of charge. 

But when the demand came for standards of efficiency 
in our schools, some educators realized that the logical 
standardizing office is, of course, the United States bureau. 
Uniform blanks for the reporting of school facts have been 
prepared and uniform schedules for recording currently, 
so that comparisons between cities and states may be pos- 
sible at the end of each year. Circulars are distributed 

329 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

giving, for example, the most recent legislation about edu- 
cation for each state or model plans for dental inspection. 

The present commissioner has seen the possibilities of 
bringing the experience of one state to bear on the solution 
of similar problems in another state. He wants to have 
an adequate budget to study rural school administration, 
vocational education, questions of school health and sani- 
tation, normal schools, abnormal children, ad infinitum. 
There was little left in his plan to be taken up by a separate 
"children's bureau." He wants to make of his bureau 
an actual clearing house of information and suggestions 
from the best that the million educators and teachers in 
all parts of the country are doing and thinking. 

Now, there are scores of national outside agencies, sup- 
posedly doing national work for schools, and the connec- 
tion between their work and that of the United States 
bureau is as logical as between any city superintendent 
and a public education association. Yet the commissioner 
writes, "So far as I know, there has been comparatively 
little cooperation." The clerk of the bureau made this 
statement : 

Some of the private foundations have been of considerable assistance 
in the work of this bureau. We have found especially valuable in con- 
nection with the standardization of higher educational institutions the 
data which have been collected by the Carnegie Foundation for the 
Advancement of Teaching and the General Education Board, which 
members of our staff have been permitted to consult freely. In this way 
information has been placed in the hands of the bureau that would have 
been practically impossible for us to obtain otherwise. The studies of 
the Russell Sage Foundation, especially in school hygiene and retardation 
of pupils, have been found very helpful in the work of the bureau. Sim- 
ilarly, the activities of the Bureau of Municipal Research, New York 
City, in calling attention especially of schoolmen to the great need of 
uniformity in reports of educational officers and in creating public senti- 
ment for the improvement of educational conditions, have rendered our 
work easier. The publications of some of these foundations have ren- 

330 



NOT-YET-GRASPED OPPORTUNITIES 

dered it unnecessary for this bureau to issue publications on some phases 
of education, and have thus enabled it to concentrate its efforts in other 
directions. 

School people have just begun to realize what they and 
Commissioner Claxton can make of the bureau. The great 
majority of outside agencies whose interest is local and 
spasmodic have not apparently ever thought that their 
work for education has any national value. When they 
make it possible for the bureau to include among its patrons 
1,000,000 organized women and the thousands of other 
cooperators with public schools, its usefulness will be in- 
calculably increased. 

A National Clearing House for School Cooperation 

How can a chamber of commerce learn what similar 
bodies have done about commercial training? 

Where can a woman's club learn the best methods for 
getting medical inspection or starting school gardens? 

Expert experience, information, and suggestions on every 
possible phase of school cooperation may be obtained from 
some agency or individual, if you only know where or 
to whom to write. Since sending out questions about 
civic cooperation we have had many requests for informa- 
tion from groups and individuals, men and women, and 
we have been able to refer them to the agencies best equipped 
to answer them. From this constant inquiring and from 
the splendid suggestions which came in answer to our ques- 
tions, the need seems clear for a national agency to do 
for the whole country what a central city agency does in 
its city. For county and state rural school improvement 
leagues, for central agencies in cities, for the great national 
groups of organized women and the numerous agencies 

working in every state — for all these there is now no logical 

331 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

central head, no mutual clearing house of the invaluable 
suggestions from their experience. There is no reservoir 
for stimulation like that which one cannot help getting, 
for example, from Miss Moore's report on rural school co- 
operation, or from the story of health day in Chillicothe. 
It is undeniably clear that there must be eventually a 
national clearing house for school cooperation. This chart 
shows how such an agency is relatively as important and 
logical for the millions of outsiders interested in schools 
as is a developed bureau of education for state, county, and 
city superintendents, principals, and teachers. 

United States National Bureau of 

Bureau of Education — > — < — School Cooperation 

t i 

</ V 

State Superintendents — > - < — State Organizers 

t t 

V V 

City Superintendents — > - < — Central City Organizations 

i t 

V V . . 
Principals and Teachers — > — < — Local and District Agencies 

of Men and Women 
"A /J 

20,000,000 School Children 

For such a national bureau, a brief outline is given 
here: 

Purpose: To promote efficient cooperation between state and city school 
authorities, and volunteer agencies of men and women 
To nationalize in working, practical form the experience of 
school officials and outside organizations, public, private, and 
semi-private, for efficient cooperation and community work 
through schools 

332 



NOT-YET-GRASPED OPPORTUNITIES 

Budget: For postage, printing, and stationery, field secretary, secretary's 
salary, office rent and equipment, bulletin service, stenog- 
rapher, collecting data, $25,000-$50,000 
Location: New York or Washington, D. C. 

Form of Organization: National secretary, field secretaries, and office staff 

Program: I. Act as a central clearing house of information for school 

people and outsiders, with special emphasis on referring 

inquiries to and passing on suggestions from official and 

volunteer agencies, educational journals, and the press 

II. Maintain a bulletin service of suggestions to school people 

and organizations classified under (a) kind of interest 
(health, playgrounds, budget, course of study, etc.), (&) 
kind of member (chamber of commerce, minister, etc.) 

III. Furnish, upon request, programs of cooperation for in- 

dividual volunteers and organizations 

IV. Help organize, under state superintendents, bureaus for 

school cooperation where information and suggestions 
may be collected from city and county superintendents 
and from volunteer organizations 

V. Analyze currently and appraise all school reports, passing 

on to all superintendents and the subscribing list of 
outside agencies outlines of progressive steps and 
methods noted 

VI. Make surveys of city and county school systems on which 

to base efficient outside cooperation 

VII. Study the cooperation given by outside agencies in cities 

and help organize central city coordination 



The opportunity in such a program might well be grasped 
by the United States bureau of education or the new ''chil- 
dren's bureau." No one present outside agency is at- 
tempting to do all or even half of this work. The Bureau 
of Information of the General Federation of Women's 
Clubs perhaps comes nearest, but, without funds and with 
a clientele of women only, it does not begin to meet the 
need. National organizations can answer questions on 
their specialties, but until recently even they have not 

begun comparing and suggesting from local work, and few 

333 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

of them see more than their own particular object or the 
interrelation of all school questions. 

The time and money, not to mention disillusionment 
and discouragement, wasted by earnest, active men and 
women who are trying to cooperate with the schools, be- 
cause of poor methods, lack of facts and of comparative 
suggestions, would easily pay for such a central agency. 
When once it exists, local agencies will be currently sending 
in new material through reports and answers to ques- 
tionnaires, because they will realize what they in return 
may receive from such a reservoir. The channels through 
which a central agency would work are the outside organ- 
izations mentioned in this book, and hundreds more with 
which we have not been in touch; the graduates of colleges 
and universities; the tremendous resources of unoccupied 
men and women of leisure; and the spirit which demands 
definite opportunities for satisfactory social service. 



APPENDIX 

Cards and Blanks Used in this Study 

IN the hope that the details of an investigation of this 
character may help others who are making surveys and 
getting facts on which to base uniform constructive work, 
the story of the study on which this book rests is given here. 
We asked our first question of the men who were supposed 
to know, in this case, the school superintendents. Their 
names were found in the United States commissioner of 
education's report, and the World's Almanac told which 
cities have 10,000 inhabitants or over. A form letter was 
sent asking them to write us what had been done or to 
itemize on an inclosed stamped post card the cooperation 
received. 

Citizens have helped the public schools of 

with respect to items hereafter checked: Medical and dental examina- 
tion ; school nurse ; sanitary improvements ; new build- 
ings ; recreation and playgrounds ; decorations ; industrial 
training ; kindergartens ; changes in school law ; budget 
increases ; relief of needy ; other 

For information regarding such "school help" I suggest that you write 
to 

Name Address 

(one business man) 

(one woman) 

(one minister) 

(one physician or dentist) 

May we mention your name in writing them? Do you plan to mention 
citizen cooperation, or the need of it, in your next annual report? 

(Signed) 

335 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

Of the 733 names given us by superintendents, the pro- 
portion was: women 196, physicians and dentists 192, 
business men 187, and ministers 158. Eighty-six super- 
intendents mentioned no names. 

A form letter was then sent to each of these individuals. 
To the business men we wrote as follows: 

Would your city be helped by a statement showing for several hundred 
cities how volunteer bodies, such as public education associations, women's 
clubs, boards of trade, charities, etc., cooperate with public schools? 

We hope to include in our report the main facts as to the help already 
given by the business men of your city to your public schools. When we 
asked the name of one business man most familiar with school needs and 
school work, and Ukely to be interested in our cooperative study, we were 
given your name. 

Will you take the time to name the principal ways in which the business 
men of your city have helped the public schools, apart from serving on 
the school board, paying taxes, and voting? We shall be grateful for such 
details as your time permits, and shall regard as confidential any part 
of your letter so marked. We shall try to have the information you give 
us used as school news in your daily paper. If you do not care to have 
this done please tell us when you write. 

In addition to specific instances of helpfulness, we hope 

1. To bring out the extent to which business men help in supporting 
requests for (a) school buildings, (b) school budget appropriations, (c) im- 
provements in school law, (d) commercial training, (e) industrial training, 
if) night schools, (g) instruction in civics, (h) athletics, (i) playgrounds, 
(j) public lectures; 

2. To find out whether the business man's attention is continuous 
(through permanent organizations and committees) or incidental and inter- 
mittent (through specially appointed committees, mass meetings, etc.). 

We did not say that their names had been given us by 
the superintendents, because in some cases superintendents 
were unwilling to have this connection made. A follow-up 
letter to business men who had not answered, with ''May 
we have your answer by May 15th?" brought in almost 
twice as many replies. A stamped post card was again 
inclosed for those who could not spare the time to write. 

336 



APPENDIX 

Similar letters and cards were addressed to ministers, 
to physicians and dentists, and to women, asking for in- 
formation along the lines each was probably most inter- 
ested in, and inclosing stamped return cards. For example, 
physicians were asked to check off as follows: 

The ^7 .. , of have helped the pubhc schools as 

individuals ; as members of the lay organizations ; in , , 
organizations 

To ^/ , . , is due in large measure a medical inspection for trans- 
missible diseases ; (6) medical examination for physical defects ; 
(c) dental examinations ; (d) house to house instruction of parents ; 
(e) instruction of parents in groups ; (f) free treatment of medical 
needs and physical defects ; (g) free treatment of teeth ; (h) gen- 
eral instruction at school in hygiene ; (i) open air rooms or schools ; 
(j) fresh air for all rooms ; (k) school lunches ; sanitary improve- 
ments ; other: 

Will you write us instances later? May we publish your letter? 

{Signed) 

Ministers were asked to state whether they have or have 
not been generally interested in public school questions; 
do (not) make frequent reference in sermons to school 
needs; do (not) visit schools; do (not) attend public hear- 
ings on the school budget; have (not) interested themselves 
in school instruction, in civics, ethics, in the need for med- 
ical supervision, school nurse, public lectures; and whether 
they have (not) tried to interest their church clubs in 
helping schools. 

We asked women to tell what their organizations had 

337 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 

done about all these things and, in addition, about school 
lunches, kindergartens, school gardens, music, scholarships, 
and relief. 

Where special agencies were mentioned by a superinten- 
dent, or by one of those named by him, we endeavored 
to get in touch with the president or chairman. It seems 
to bring better results when you write to "Mrs. John 
Smith" than to "Secretary, Woman's Club." 

In estimating the cost of investigations one has to con- 
sider printing of questions, postage, return postage, clerical 
work of tabulating, printing of results, and postage for 
distributing results. Each of these items may be figured 
on in advance, so there is no danger of doing half the study 
and finding no funds to continue. 

A Dozen "DonHs^^ for Volunteer Inquirers 

A college professor once told me that if she answered 
conscientiously all the questionnaires sent her it would take 
her at least three hours every day. The following sugges- 
tions from practical experience are given to help the writers 
as well as the receivers of questionnaires. 

1. Don't be discouraged if two-thirds of the answers fail to come. 

2. Don't fail to send a second, follow-up inquiry if you want complete 

returns. 

3. Don't send return envelopes without stamps. 

4. Don't use a letter circular, if questions will go on a post card. 

5. Don't fail to make circulars attractive, easy to read, and neat. 

6. Don't omit a careful explanation of what you want people to tell you. 

7. Don't ask questions that might have two meanings. 

8. Don't ask questions that are answered in a report. 

9. Don't ask for wi'itten answers where figures will suffice. 

10. Don't forget to ask for signature, place, and date. 

1 1 . Don't forget that you have no claim on those you are writing to, and 

therefore try to reduce their work to a minimum. 

12. Don't forget that an answer is a favor, and not a moral obhgation. 

338 



INDEX BY TOPICS 



100%, in meeting needs, 4; through a 
budget exhibit, 70; for Y. M. C. A., 
91; represented in charts, 129 ; fresh 
air for, 155, 229; clean water for, 
156; club work for, 198; not defec- 
tive, 225; of crippled children, 232; 
against hookworms, 240; necessary- 
dental work, 249 ; of vacation needs, 
278; trained employees, 289; effi- 
ciency by outsiders, 327; plan of 
U. S. bureau, 330. 



Adenoids, see Medical inspection, 
Alice in Health Land, 239. 
American Art Annual, 21. 
American, The New York, 22. 
Architects, advise school boards, 11; 

remedy hghting defects, 159; see 

also Landscape. 
Art, see Beauty maldng. 
Art museum, see Museum. 
Athletics, for girls, 87; public school 

athletic leagues, 86-89. 
Attendance officers, see Truancy. 

B 

Backward children, see Non-promo- 
tions. 

Basement, see Sanitation. 

Bathing parties, in homes, 11; at pub- 
lic expense, 49. 

Beauty making, in school rooms, 21- 
23; about school grounds, 25, 168, 
191. 

Benefactions, see Giving. 

Bequests, see Giving. 



Blind, preventive work, 226; also see 
Lighting. 

Board of education, see School board. 

Bubbling fountain, see Sanitation. 

Budget, in town meeting, 3; social 
workers' conference, 19; in exhibit, 
67; for civic training, 84; for play- 
gi'ounds, 104; joint committee, 128; 
for drinking fountains, 158; and 
visiting teachers, 174; for athletics, 
88;_ unused by Y. M. C. A., 91; for 
social centers, 114; for gardens, 168; 
for health, 223; open air school, 
230; lay support advisable, 260; 
ministers' interest, 269; for voca- 
tional training, 290; and voters' 
league, 314; a business proposition, 
317-320. 

Budget hearings, unattended, 319. 

Buildings, asked for, 280; and voters' 
leagues, 314; also see Giving. 

Bulletins, see Publicity. 

Business Advice for Boys, 309. 

Business men, see Chapter XII. 



C 

Census, provided privately, 37; by 
women's club, 80. 

Charities, see Giving. 

Child Welfare Magazine, 148, 181. 

Children's court, see Truancy. 

Christian Scientists vs. health, 245. 

Church, see Chapter XL 

City departments, school health, 98; 
police cooperation, 75, 99; park 
work, 99; school street cleaners, 99. 

Civics and Health, 202. 

Civic training, by self-government, 



23 



339 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 



82; by city pride, 83; under Boy 
Scouts, 84. 

Clearing house, for social service, 49; 
for school news, 66; for Boy Scouts, 
85; Y. M. C. A., 90; in cities, 128; 
for counties, 138; among women's 
clubs, 179, 184; for national school 
cooperation, 331-334. 

Clinics, see Medical inspection. 

Clippings, see Publicity. 

Cloak rooms, see Sanitation. 

Clubs, dramatic, 10; in settlement or 
school, 16; need leaders, 17; mu- 
sical, 29; in small towns, 77; civic, 
82; see also organization index. 

College women, see Trusteeship. 

Colored women, see organization in- 
dex. 

Commercial training, see Vocational. 

Commission government, see School 
board. 

Compulsory education, see Truancy. 

Continuation schools, replacing night 
schools, 291; for housekeeping, 164. 

Continuation School in Munich, 291. 

Cooking, see Domestic science. 

Cost of, school relief, 46; sending bul- 
letins, 65; budget exhibits, 70; so- 
cialized school, 119; infectious dis- 
eases, 157; school lunches, 163; un- 
cured defects, 212; dental chnic, 256. 

County, supervision tested, 135; im- 
provement leagues, 136; fairs, 137; 
agricultural contests, 167. 

Crippled children, see Defectives. 

D 

Decatur Review, 26. 
Decorations, see Beauty making. 
Defective children, in institutions, 100; 

doubly handicapped, 101; on the 

edge, 102; and specialists, 225-227; 

work for cripples, 230-232; see also 

Non-promotions. 
Dental clinics, first in America, 20; 

Children's Aid Society, 48; number 

needed, 248; in and out of school, 

252-256. 
Dental Dispensary Record, 261. 
Dental inspection, Whitney fund, 33; 



still new, 247; bound to come, 248; 

and school work, 248; how it 

originates, 250-252. 
Dental Summary, 260. 
Dentists, see Chapter X. 
Diseases, see Medical inspection. 
Domestic science, by housekeeping, 

164; and baby caring, 165; taught 

at home, 165. 
Dramatics, see Trusteeship. 
Drinking cup, see Sanitation. 

E 

Education and Entertainment by Mo- 
lion Pictures, 109. 

Educational Review, 9. 

Efficiejit Citizenship Bidleiins, 64, 307. 

Employment bureau, for volunteers, 
18 ; for girls, 43 ; under schools, 303 ; 
see also Vocational training. 

Engineers, watch school buildings, 11; 
test ventilation, 156. 

Entertainments, to raise money, 23, 
46; in settlement or school, 16; folk 
dancing, 87; by moving pictures, 
109; in social centers, 112-114; for 
rural schools, 134; for teachers by 
women's clubs, 175; by churches, 
269. 

Ethics, in social relations, 235 ; Sunday 
school vs. public school, 277. 

Examination, physical, see Medical 
inspection. 

Exhibits, of private collections, 11; 
for colleges, 15; of paintings, 24; 
of crafts shops, 25; of school work, 
59; budget, 67-70; flowers, 169; of 
dental evils, 262; in factories, 286. 

Expense, see Budget and Cost. 

Eye defects, see Lighting. 

F 

Farm and Ranch Magazine, 113. 
Fathers, see Parents. 
Feather duster, see Sanitation. 
Feeble minded children, see Defec- 
tives. 
Fifteen Years of Civic History, 191. 
Firelcss cooker, for rural schools, 134. 



340 



INDEX 



Fire protection, see Sanitation. 
Franchise, imused by women, 3. 



G 



Gardens at school, a private gift, 35; 
and fathers, 122; for profit, 167; 
the city's, 169; under a church, 273. 

General Federation Bulletin, 156, 180. 

Giving, in bequests, 4; in 1911, 6; of 
service and things, 33-39; vs. pub- 
he responsibihty, 34; through wills, 
35; Ben Frankhn's, 36; at Christ- 
mas, 37; for experiments, 37; su- 
perintendents' suggestions, 39; for 
nation-wide needs, 41; material re- 
Hef , 43-46; for museum school work, 
97; of gardens, 122; for gardens, 
169; by colored women, 193. 

Glee club, see Music. 

Globe, The New York, school news, 7. 



H 



Health, see Chapter IX. 

Health day in schools, 237. 

Health department, see City. 

Health Hints to Parents, 242. 

Health Index of School Children, 203. 

Hearings, see Budget. 

Heating, tests for, 151. 

Holland's Magazine, 113. 

Home, private exhibits, 11; visiting, 
16, 17, 172-175; and school, 115- 
123; teaching of cooking, 165; see 
also organization index. 

Hookworm eradication, 240. 

Hospital, see Health. 

Hygiene instruction, and Uving, 232- 
233; maxims, 233, 237; vs. sex hy- 
giene, 234; all-aroimd, 235-237. 



Improving Reputation of School Re- 
ports, 58. 

Industrial education, see Vocational 
training. 

Initiative, by settlement or school, 16 ; 
in making experiments, 31 ; in start- 
ing inquiries, 62; athletic, 88; Y. 



M. C. A.'s opportunity, 89; in li- 
brary cooperation, 95; in starting 
playgrounds, 103; for kindergar- 
tens, 106; by parents, 115; in New 
York, 126; by outside agencies, 131 ; 
in gardening, 166; by superinten- 
dents, 326. 



Jinglef, for health, 238. 
Journal of Education, 164. 
Juvenile courts, see Truancy. 



K 



Kindergartens, through private initia- 
tive, 106-108; started by minister, 
266. 



Labor unions, oppose Scouts, 85; 

favor trade schools, 292. 
Landscape gardening, see Beauty 

making. 
Lectures, by speciahsts, 11; on art, 

24; for good roads, 1-34; on natvu-e 

study, 169; on citizenship, 84, 265; 

to foreigners, 192; on health, 98, 

204, 222, 240; by school nurses, 215; 

on sex hygiene, 235, 236; about 

teeth, 260, 261; bv business men, 

90, 296, 308. 
Legislation, by women, 188; for 

health, 208, 242; vs. adenoids, 216; 

ministers' help, 266; necessary laws, 

311; voters' leagues, 313-315. 
Library, modes of cooperation, 93-96; 

Newark, 94; New York, 94, 127. 
Library Journal, 96. 
Library's Work with Public Schools, 94. 
Lighting, score card, 150; how to test, 

158-160. 
"Little Mothers," see City. 
Limches, see School lunch. 



M 



Medical inspection, examinations 
started, 205-209, 266; by teachers, 
208; for defective chUdren, 226; 



341 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 



watching it work, 216-221; by 
health department, 98; systems, 
204, 206; free treatment, 207, 209- 
212; school nurse, 212-216, 255, 
266. 

Medical Inspection in Public ScJwols, 
202. 

Medical Inspection of Schools in Mil- 
waukee, 207. 

Method, in women's clubs, 179, 196- 
200; coordination, 128, 184; inter- 
club committees, 189; for state 
work, 200; lay backing desirable, 
208; parallel column, 221; individ- 
ual vs. organization, 222; threefold 
attack, 251; lay backing for den- 
tists, 259; continuous vs. intermit- 
tent, 287. 

Minimum salary, see Legislation. 

Ministerial associations, inactive for 
schools, 274. 

Ministers, interest varies, 264; de- 
nominational bogy, 265; gain school 
information, 267; budget interest, 
269; sermons and addresses, 271; 
threefold opportunity, 273. 

Morality, see Ethics. 

Moving pictures, to teach with, 91, 
108-111. 

Municipal Facts, 84. 

Museums, art, 24-25; natural history, 
96; zoological, 97; in schools, 97. 

Music, in settlements, 28; a school 
opportunity, 29-32; school band, 
38. 



N 



Nation-wide, interest overestimated, 
1; needs suggested, 41; organized 
women, 177-180; standardizing 
agency, 329; opportunity, 331; see 
also organization index. 

Nature study, see Museums. 

News Letter, The, 117. 

Newspaper, see Publicity. 

Night schools, for foreigners, 191; in- 
adequate, 291. 

Non-promotions, and clinics, 13; 
class for defectives, 20; some tests 
and remedies, 306-308. 



O 



Open air schools, in Chicago, 190; in 
Pittsburg, 192; how started, 227- 
230. 

Oral Hygiene, 248, 253, 261, 262. 

Our Public Schools, 59. 

Outside Cooperation tvith the Public 
Schools of Greater New York, 125. 

Overage, see Non-promotions. 



Parents' association, unlimited pos- 
sibilities, 115-118; mothers' coun- 
cil, 121; fathers' clubs, 121. 

Park department, see City. 

Part-time, and playgrounds, 105; for 
volunteers, 18. 

Pathk Weekly, 110. 

Pay Public Schools, 308. 

Peace Day, 93. 

Pedagogues and Parents, 57. 

Pediculosis, treated by nurse, 212; see 
also Transmissible diseases. 

Physicians, see Chapter IX. 

Pin maps, for compulsory education, 
81; of parents' clubs, 117; for 
school gardens, 168; of hospitals, 
212; for school nurse, 212. 

Playground, The, 106. 

Playgrounds, promoted by outsiders, 
103-106; need volunteers, 17; equip- 
ment given, 38; by a relief society, 
46; in Pittsburg, 191; minister 
helps, 266. 

Police department, see City. 

Poole's Index, 2. 

Poor children, see Giving. 

Popular Oral Hygiene Lectures, 261. 

Practical Advice to Parents, 242. 

Preventable, see Transmissible dis- 
eases. 

Prizes, given by outsiders, 38, 266; in 
athletic contests, 87, 90; for school 
essays, 93, 285: for school improve- 
ment, 137; for gardens, 166; for 
health rhymes, 240; for bank ac- 
count, 310. 

Private charities, see Giving. 



342 



INDEX 



Private schools, initiate improve- 
ments, 11. 

Publicity, one idea at a time, 34, 64; 
using clippings, 67, 83, 241; short 
cuts, 51-74; through newspapers, 
57; by club year books, 72; suf- 
fragist methods, 74; at state fairs, 
134; for school improvement leagues, 
135; about Texas school facts, 138; 
through women's clubs, 178, 181, 
199; for health. 240-243; about 
teeth, 259, 260-263; by ministers, 
271-272; on school laws, 311; about 
commissioners, 313-315; about 
budgets, 318; through U. S. bureau, 
329. 

Q 

Questionnaire, for parents' clubs, 117; 
on sanitary conditions, 149-152; 
for rural schools, 133, 153; on sex 
hygiene instruction, 234; used in 
this study, 335, 337. 



R 



Recreation, summer study of, 183; 
see also Playgrounds and Social 
centers. 

Relief, see Giving. 

Reports, school, made automatic, 48; 
foster outside interest, 51; list 
school needs, 54 ; copied in news- 
papers, 57; suggestions from other 
cities, 67; for commissioners, 316. 

Reports, club, backward or forward, 
179, 182; of colored women, 195. 

Retardation, see Non-promotions. 

Rural schools, see topics. 



S 



Salaries, teachers', see Legislation. 
Sanitation, investigated, 73; how to 

watch, 145-148; record card, 149- 

152; in riu-al schools, 153; the 

drinking cup, 156-158. 
Savings banks, for thrift, 310. 
Scholarships, for art students, 24; 

needed everywhere, 41; for girls. 



42; and child labor, 79; for'negroes, 
194; in commercial training, 296. 

School, socialized, needs volunteers, 
17; as a private experiment, 20; 
parents help, 118; as polUng place, 
113; see topics. 

School board, college members, 12, 
183; helpedby mothers, 121; wom- 
en's fitness, 141 ; tests for members, 
142; physicians' contribution, 224; 
and dentists, 257 ; ministers as com- 
missioners, 268; business men, 315- 
317; ignores assets, 323. 

School Bulletin, 59. 

School curriculum, see "Three Rs." 

School Hygiene, 156, 160. 

School improvement leagues, state- 
wide work, 135-138; of colored 
people, 194. 

School inquiries, by local experts, 11; 
for constructive criticism, 61-63; of 
rural schools, 135. 

School lunch, in high schools, 160; 
against malnutrition, 161; in open 
air classes, 229. 

School Mirror, 58. 

School mortality, see Non-promotions. 

School nurse, see Medical inspection. 

School Reports and School Efficiency, 
48. 

School revenue, see Budget. 

Seating capacity, see Sanitation. 

Settlement, vs. school, 15-16; co- 
operates with dentists, 253. 

Sewing, see Domestic science. 

Social Betterment Among Negro Amer- 
icans, 193. 

"Social broker," mothers are, 121; 
a central agency, 131; through vis- 
iting committees, 145; physicians 
need, 223. 

Social center, and volunteer, 18; vs. 
social spirit, 112; in rural schools, 
113; a demonstration, 190. 

Social workers, training schools, 14; 
larger opportunity, 16; conference 
of, 19. 

Special Class for Backward Children, 
226. 

State, watching its institutions, 101; 
supervision investigated, 135; fairs 



343 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 



for publicity, 134, 137; educational 
cooperator, 138; see also organiza- 
tion and place indices. 

Street cleaning department, see City. 

Superintendents, report outside co- 
operation, 3-5; and private giving, 
39-42; advertise, 58; foster par- 
ents' interest, 59-61; and school 
patrons, 186, 187; and medical so- 
cieties, 205; give ministers facts, 
267; use cooperation, 321-325; de- 
serve efficiency, 325. 

Survey, The, 167, 252. 



Talks, see Lectiu-es. 

Taxes, grudgingly paid, 1, 283; private 
gifts stimulate, 40; and business 
men, 282; and budget, 320. 

Teachers, promote pubUcity, 57; use 
libraries, 94; and museums, 25, 90; 
and parents, 115; rural, 135; visit- 
ing, 172; social efficiency, 175; 
"teachers' house," 176; and 
churches, 269, 277. 

Textbooks, on tuberculosis, 50; fumi- 
gated, 205; antiquated hygiene, 
233. 

"Three Rs," tests for, 304; vs. 
"fads and frills," 12, 320. 

Toothbrushes, see Dentists. 

Trachoma, inspection for, 205; special 
classes, 227. 

Training, for school cooperation, 12- 
19; for commissionership, 144, 317. 

Transcript, The Boston, 66. 

Transmissible diseases, inspection for, 
202-205; record of, 217. 

Tribune, The New York, 62 

Truancy, and delinquency, 75; "bad 
boy" school, 76; in small towns, 
77; and child labor, 79; investi- 
gated, 192. 

Trusteeship, of special talent, 10, 17, 
22, 25; of conservatism, 12; of 
colleges, 12, 14; of civic experience, 
84; of Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A., 
92; of college women, 182; of 



health knowledge, 202, 225-227; of 
individuals, 257. 



Vacation schools, and budget exhibit, 
08; and Y. M. C. A., 89; started in 
New York, 47; how many need 
them, 170; under churches, 278 ; in- 
vestigated, 278. 

Ventilating and Heating, 150. 

Ventilation, by v/indow boards, 37; 
score card for, 150; for everybody, 
155-156. 

Visiting teachers, for and against, 172- 
174. 

Vitagraph, Monthly, 110. 

Vocational guidance, lectures, 13; and 
child labor, 79; by Y. M. C. A., 90; 
promoters of, 297-301; for girls, 
300; through schools, 303. 

Vocational training, for cripples, 232; 
for manufactories, 2SS; vs. manual 
work, 289; how courses start, 290; 
by continuation schools, 292; for 
commerce, 294; advisory commit- 
tees, 295; school opportunities, 301. 

Volunteers, for school cooperation, 
10-19, 31; give civic instruction, 
84; help athletics, 88; on commit- 
tees, 132, 144; physicians, 221, 222, 
230; dentists, 254; through 
churches, 276; lectures, 309. 

Voters' leagues, see Legislation. 

W 

Waste, saved for improvements, 320. 

Water, see Sanitation. 

What You Should Know about Tu- 
berculosis, 244. 

When Do, Why Do, Where Do Children 
Fail? 65. 

Wider Use of the School Plant, 112, 279. 

Will making, see Giving. 

Woman's Part in Government, 200. 

World's Almanac, 335. 

Y 

Year book, see Publicity. 



PERSONS AND ORGANIZATIONS 
MENTIONED 



Academy of Medicine, Elmira, 50, 208. 

Allen, Mr. William H., 48, 62, 200, 
202, 239, 248. 

Alumnse Association, Newark, 161. 

Alumnae Club, Louisville, 160. 

American Association for the Con- 
servation of Vision, 226. 

American Medical Association, 226, 
243, 244. 

American Museum of Natural His- 
tory, 96. 

American School Hygiene Association, 
244. 

American School Peace League, 92. 

Andrews, Mrs. Fannie Fern, 118. 

Anti-Cigarette League, 125, 233. 

Anti-Tuberculosis League : Water- 
bury, 50; ChiUicothe, 215, 237, 251; 
Boston, 228; South Bend, 241; 
Cohoes, 281. 

Arundell Club, Baltimore, 147. 

Associated Charities: Harrisburg, 50; 
Waterbury, 50, 104; Pittsburg, 193; 
Reading, 250. 

Association for the Aid of Crippled 
Children, 231. 

Association of Collegiate Alumnae: 
182-183, 184; Boston, 146; New 
York, 183, 278. 

Association for Improving the Condi- 
tion of the Poor, New York, 46, 171. 

Athenaeum, The, Kansas City, 312. 

Atlanta University, 193. 

Atherton, Mrs. Caroline S., 147. 

Austin, Mrs. H. W., 191. 

Ayres, Mr. Leonard P., 202. 



B 



Baer, Mr. G. F., 122. 

Barus, Mrs. Carl, 148. 

Barry, Mrs. Maggie W., 234, 

Barth, Dr. G. P., 207. 

BiUings, Dr. J. S., 156. 

Blake, Miss Katharine D., 93. 

Bloomfield, Mr. Meyer, 13, 299. 

Board of Trade: Hoboken, 70; Win- 
ston Salem, 282, 285; Kearney, 285; 
GreenviUe, 285; Newark, 285; 
Boston, 295. 

Boy Scouts of America, 85, 125. 

Brenner, Mr. Victor D., 24. 

Brett, Mr. George P., 295. 

Brittain, Mr. Horace L., 53. 

Brooklyn League, 318. 

Bruce, Mr. H. Addington, 301. 

Bryn Mawr College, 14, 53. 

Bxireau of Compulsory Education, 
Philadelphia, 44. 

Bureau of Municipal Research, 33, 
39, 52, 58, 63, 64, 70, 125, 135, 142, 
306, 307, 316, 330. 

Burt, Mr. Welhngton R., 34. 



Cabot, Dr. Richard C, 234. 
Carnegie, Mr. Andrew, 6. 
Carnegie Foundation, 1, 330. 
Carnegie Institute, 6. 
Castle Square Theater Company, 10. 
Century Club, Chilhcothe, 215, 237- 

240, 251. 
Chamber of Commerce: Washington, 

38, 287; South Bend, 113; Cleve- 



345 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 



land, 284; Oklahoma City, 286; 
Boston, 286, 295, 299; Trenton, 
287; New York, 294. 

Charity Organization Society, New 
York, 228. 

Child Labor Committee: Connecti- 
cut, 79; New York, 79; Pittsburg, 
193; Cincinnati, 303. 

Children's Aid Society, New York, 19, 
48, 252. 

Children's Care Committees, London, 
145, 163. 

Citizens' Association, Chicago, 62. 

City Club: Los Angeles, 113; Phila- 
delphia, 286, 315; Chicago, 315; 
New York, 315. 

City History Club, New York, 83. 

Civic Club: Allegheny County, 23, 
168, 191-193, 208; Binghamton, 
37; Kalamazoo, 44, 310; Ports- 
mouth, 53. 

Clark, Mr. Lee, 138. 

Clark, Miss Marjorie, 255. 

Claxton, Commissioner P. P., 177, 
329, 331. 

College Settlement, Philadelphia, 228. 

Columbia University, 15. 

Commercial Club: Richmond, 31; 
Indianapolis, 284; Peru, 285; East 
St. Louis, 286; Topeka, 286; Port- 
land, 309. 

Commission on Industrial Educa- 
tion, Massachusetts, 290. 

Committee on Tuberculosis, New 
York, 164, 229, 244. 

Coney Island Mothers' Club, 107. 

Conference for Education in Texas, 
138. 

Congress of Mothers: Richmond, 104, 
120; Denver, 104, 235; National, 
116, 133, 180. 184; Louisiana, 134. 

Congressional Brotherhood, New Bed- 
ford, 274. 

Consumers' League: Connecticut, 79; 
Mt. Vernon, 80. 

Consumptives' Hospital, Boston, 228. 

Cooperative Education Association, 
Tennessee, 137. 

Council of Jewish Women, 184. 

Crampton, Dr. C. Ward, 233. 

Cubberley, Dr. E. P., 9. 



D 

Dana, Mr. John Cotton, 94. 

de Garmo, Mrs. Frank, 135. 

de Grosse, Rev. Isaiah, 271. 

Dental Society: Reading, 250; Mus- 
kegon, 250; Denver County, 253; 
Illinois, 261; Rochester, 261; Ohio, 
261. 

Dermitt, Miss H. M., 193. 

Draper, Commissioner Andrew S., 
280, 324. 

Dyer, Supt. Frank B., 294. 



E 



Ebersole, Dr. W. G., 248, 259, 261. 
Edison, Mr. Thomas A., 108. 
Educational League, Philadelphia, 

128. 
Educational Society, Manchester, 228. 
Eliot, Ex-President Charles W., 1. 
Elizabeth McCormick Memorial 

Fund, Chicago, 190, 229. 
Elson, Supt. Wm. H., 306, 308. 
Equal Franchise Society, Dobbs Ferry, 

70. 

F 

Fairchild, Mr. Milton J., 277. 
Farrell, Miss Elizabeth, 226. 
Federal Council Commission on the 

Church and Social Service, 275. 
Federation for Sex Hygiene, 235. 
Field Museum, Chicago, 97. 
Free Kindergarten Association, New 

York, 106, 109. 
First Unitarian Church, Cambridge, 

266. 
Forsythe Dental Infirmary, 258. 
Forsythe, Mr. James Bennet, 258. 
Franklin, Benjamin, 36. 
Free Dental Clinic, New York, 127, 

255-256. 

G 

General Education Board, 33, 330. 
General Federation of Women's Clubs, 

177-180, 184, 208, 234, 333. 
General Film Company, 109, 
Gill, Dr. Laura D., 199. 



346 



INDEX 



Girls' Trade Education League, Bos- 
ton, 299. 
Granges, 185, 188. 
Greenwich House, New York, 15. 
Grice, Mrs. Edwin C., 118. 
Guild of Play, New York, 104. 
Gulick, Dr. Luther P., 202, 244. 

H 

Haney, Dr. J. P., 25. 

Harris, Mr. N. W., 97. 

Harvard University, 13, 299. 

Heyward, Rev. John, 268. 

High School Teachers' Association, 
New York, 221, 297. 

Hoag, Dr. Ernest B., 202, 208. 

Holland, Mr. Frank P., 113. 

Home and School Association, Bos- 
ton, 117, 299. 

Home and School League, Philadel- 
phia, 117, 162. 

"Hookworm Commission," 240. 

Huyler, Mr. John S., 38. 



International Congress on Tubercu- 
losis, 241. 

J 

Johnstone, Dr. E. R., 102. 

K 
Kaffee Klatsch Club, Chicago, 194. 



Laity League for Social Service, New 

York, 260. 
Lawrence Teachers' Association, 57. 
Levenworth, Mr. Elisha, 35. 
London County Council, 242. 

M 

Mannes, Mr. David, 28. 
Massachusetts Civic League, 312. 
Medical Society: Milwaukee, 207; 
Spartanburg, 208; Pittsburg, 208. 
Merchants' Association, Boston, 295. 



Merritt, Dr. Arthur E., 253. 
Metcalfe, Mr. Tristram W., 7. 
Metropolitan Art Museum, New 

York, 24. 
Monday Evening Club, Washington, 

242. 
Montessori, Madame Maria, 108. 
Moore, Miss Virginia P., 137, 332. 
Morton, Supt. O. A., 308. 
Mothers' Club, Decatur, 26, 53, 276. 
Municipal Art Society, New York, 23. 
Music School Settlement, New York, 

28. 

N 

National Association of Colored 
Women's Clubs, 193. 

National Association for the Preven- 
tion of Tuberculosis, 244. 

National Board of Censorship, 110. 

National Child Labor Committee, 79, 
82. 

National Dental Society, 259. 

National Education Association, 57, 
227; school patrons department, 
183-189, 234; health committee, 
244. 

National Institution for Moral In- 
struction, 277. 

National League for Medical Free- 
dom, 243, 244. 

National Municipal League, 83, 112. 

National Plant, Flower, and Fruit 
Guild, 169. 

National Society for the Prevention 
of Mendicancy, 77. 

National Society for the Promotion of 
Industrial Education, 291. 

National Vacation Bible School As- 
sociation, 278. 

New England Diet Kitchen, Boston, 
160. 

Noble, Mrs. Anna, 235. 

North Bennet Industrial School, Bos- 
ton, 289. 

O 

Ohio Mechanics' Institute, 6. 
Olivet Boys Club, Reading, 89. 
Olivet Fathers' Club, Reading, 122. 
Osier, Dr. William, 247. 



347 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 



Palmer, Mrs. Alice Freeman, 146. 

Paqiiin, Dr. Paul, 204. 

Park Church, Elmira, 271. 

Parker Hill School, Boston, 228. 

Patten, Prof. Simon N., 55. 

Pattern Makers' Association, 292. 

People's Church, Kalamazoo, 260. 

People's Recr(>ation Company, 111. 

Peo])le's Symphony Orchestra, Rich- 
mond, 30. 

People's Institute, New York, S3, 111. 

Permanent School Extension Com- 
mittee, Chicago, 189-191. 

Perry, Mr. (Clarence A., 112, 279. 

Pettinger, Mrs. G. H., 199. 

Playground Association, Pittsburg, 
105. 

Playground and llecreation Associa- 
tion of America, 1()(), 109. 

Phipps Institute, 228. 

Prudence Crandall Association, Wash- 
ington, 195. 

Psychological Clinic, 13, 163, 226. 

Public E(lucation Association: Provi- 
dence, 71, 124, 147; Rhode Island, 
80; Waltham, 124; Philadelphia, 
124,314; Boston, 124; New York, 
123, 127, 172, 298, 320. 

Public School Alliance, New Orleans, 
312. 

Public School Art Society: Evanston, 
22; Chicago, 23. 

Publi(^ Schools Athletic League, New 
York, 3.S, SO. 

Public School Cliildrcn's Aid Society, 
Quincy, 45. 

Public School Relief Association, 
Queens, 45. 

Putnam, Dr. Helen C, 148. 



R 



Richman, Miss Julia, 17G. 
Rockefeller Foundation, i. 
Rockefeller, Mr. John 1)., i, 240. 
Russell Sage Foundation, 1)3, 70, 109, 

179, 202, 205, 227, 244, 306, 308, 

330. 
Ryerson, Mr. Mivrtin A., 22, 



S 



Sage, Mrs. Russell, i, 6. 

Savings Loan Association, Corning, 
310. 

Schmidlapp Fund, Cincinnati, 42, 303. 

Schmidlapp, Mr. J. G., 42. 

Schneider, Dean Herman A., 294. 

School Alliance, Amherst, 63. 

School Art League: New York, 23, 24; 
Washington, 287. 

School Citizens Committee, 82. 

School Extension Committee, Jersey 
City, 113. 

School Garden Association, New 
York, 168. 

School Lunch (^ommittee: New York, 
161; Philadelphia, 162. 

School Patrons, see National Educa- 
tion Association. 

School for Social Workers, Boston, 302. 

School of Philanthropy, 14. 

School Voters' League: Boston, 313; 
Ridgewood, 314. 

Schrader, Mr. G. H. F., 308. 

Sea Breeze Hospital, 49. 

Shaw, Mr. Edward B., 156, 160. 

Shawan, Dr., 227. 

Sniith College, 13. 

Snedden, Commissioner David S., 48. 

Social Service League, Elmira, 49, 
208; Middletown, 215, 311. 

Society of Artists, Chicago, 23. 

Society of Heating and Ventilating 
Engineers, New York, 156. 

Societv for the Prevention of Cruelty 
to Children, 75. 

Sout hern Association of College Wom- 
en, 1S3, 184. 

Southern Education Board, 33, 136, 
137. 

Southwestern Social Center Confer- 
ence, 113. 

State lioard of Public Affairs, Wis- 
consin, 135. 

State (^harities Aid Association, 101. 

Stale Federation of Women's Clubs: 
Rhode Island, 80; Missouri, 133; 
Kentucky, KW; Oregon, 153; New 
Jers(>v. 148, 200, 217; Texas (col- 
ored)', 194, 



348 



INDEX 



Stevens Fund for Mvmieipal Rese;\rcb, 
Hoboken, 60, 201. ^l^, 217. 



Thirv, Mr. J. H.. 310. 
Thomason. INIr. Calvin C. 107. 
Tiniining Seliool for Public Service, 135. 
Tn'hunc'Fi-esh Air Fund, 171. 
Ti-oy State Xormal School. 113. 
Tuberculosis Instittite. Chicago, 190. 
Tulaue University. 2o4. 
Twentieth Centiii'v Club: Boston, 10: 
Xenia. 194. 

U 

U. S. bureau of education. 02, 177, 

300, 307, 320—331, 333. 
U. S. department of agrictiltiu-e. 167, 

2S1. 
U. S. department of labor, 300. 
University of Cincimiati, 293. 
University of ^lissom-i, 207. 
University of Pemisylvania, 13, 226. 
Universitv of Pittsburg, 13, 105. 



Vacation School and Playgroimd 
Committee, Chicago, 1S9, 270. 

Visiting Xm-se Association, 214-216, 
266." 

Vocation Biu-eau, Boston, 29S. 

Vocational Guidance Stu"vev. Xew 
York, 29S. 



VT 



Ward. Mr. Edward J., 112. 

Waring, Colonel, 00. 

Washington Ii'ving High School, Xew 

York? 23. 
Weaver, :Mrs. Charles P., 137. 
Wlieeler School Almunse Association 

11. 
Whitney. Miss Dorothy, 33. 
Witmer, Dr. Lightner, 226. 
Wood. Mrs. Marv I.. 170. 
Woolley. Dr. Helen T., 303. 
Women's Chi'istian Temperance 

Union, 233. 
Woman's Club: Chelsea. 20. 161; 

Dubuque. 20. 106. 166. 160: Xew- 

bm-yport. 37, 73, 160; Denver. 106; 

Mt." Vernon. 106: Los Angeles. 113; 

Kalamazoo. 166: Xewark, 166: St. 

Cloud. SO: colored, 193-196. 
Women's Educational and Industrial 

Union, Boston. 161. 
Woman's Home Progressive Club, 

Paris, 194. 
Wom:m's Mtmicipal League, Boston, 

299, 301-302. 



Young. Supt. Ella Flagg, 155, 190, 
324^ 

Yoims; Glen's Christian Association, 
S9."l25. 300. 310. 

Yotmg Men's Hebrew Association. 91. 

Yoimg Women's Christian Associa- 
tion, 92. 



PLACES MENTIONED 



(with population of cities) 



Adams, Mass., 13,026: 52. 
Alameda, CaL, 23,383: 59, 265, 269. 
Altoona, Pa., 52,127: 59, 65. 
Amherst, Mass., 5,112: 63. 
Anderson, Ind., 22,476: 269. 
Arkansas, 194. 

Arlington, Mass., 11,187: 281. 
Ashville, N. C, 18,762: 204. 
Atlanta, Ga., 154,839: 291. 
Am-ora, 111., 29,807: 207, 224, 265. 



B 



Baltimore, Md., 558,485: 147, 277. 
Bcllaire, Ohio, 12,946: 281. 
Beloit, Wis., 15,125: 210, 224. 
Berkeley, CaL, 40,434: 210. 
Binghamton, N. Y., 48,443: 37. 
Birmingham, Ala., 132,685: 194, 224, 

226, 258. 
Boston, Mass, 670,585: 117, 124, 146, 

160, 165, 228, 289, 295, 298. 300, 

313. 
Braddock, Pa., 19,357: 205. 
Bridgeport, Conn., 102,054: 111. 



C 



Cairo, 111., 14,548: 271. 
Cambridge, Mass., 104,839: 266. 
Canton, S. Dak., 2,103: 241. 
Carlisle, Pa., 10,303: 309. 
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 32,811: 52. 
Chelsea, Mass., 32,452: 29, 161, 214, 

275. 
Chicago, 111., 2,185,283: 22, 23, 97, 

189, 193, 229, 279, 312, 324. 



Chillicothe, Ohio, 14,508: 74, 215, 

237 251 332 
Cincinnati,'Ohio, 364,463: 32, 42, 291, 

293, 303. 
Cleveland, Ohio, 560,663: 66, 248, 

268, 306, 309. 
Cohoes, N. Y., 24,709: 281. 
Colorado Springs, Colo., 29,078: 243. 
Columbus, Ga., 20,554: 35, 52, 280. 
Columbus, Ohio, 181,511: 211. 
Corning, N. Y., 13,730: 310. 
Covington Ky., 53,270: 210, 251. 

D 

Dayton, Ohio, 116,577: 61. 
Decatur, 111., 31,140: 26, 53, 268, 269. 
Denver, Colo., 213,381: 66, 83, 84, 

104, 106, 141, 214, 235, 280. 
Dobbs Ferry, N. Y., 3,455: 62, 70. 
Dubuque, Iowa, 38,494: 23, 29, 166, 

169. 

E 

East St. Louis, 111., 58,547: 286. 
Elmira, N. Y., 37,176: 49, 58, 59, 

208, 210, 271. 
Elyria, Ohio, 14,825: 281, 307. 
Evanston, 111., 24,978: 22, 37. 

F 

Flint, Mich., 38,550: 203, 307. 
Fort Smith, Ark., 23,975: 207. 
Freeport, III., 17,567: 280. 
Fulton, Mo., 5,228: 207. 

G 

Galesburg, 111., 22,089: 66, 106, 271. 
Gary, Ind., 16,802: 288. 



350 



INDEX 



Georgia, 185. 

GreenviUe, S. C, 15,741: 285, 288, 

309. 
Greenwich, Conn., 3,886: 62, 



H 



Harrisburg, Pa., 64,186: 50, 214. 
Hoboken, N. J., 70,324: 69, 70, 112, 

212. 
Houston, Texas, 78,800: 56, 58. 
Hyde Park, Mass., 15,507: 53. 



Illinois, 266, 312. 

Indiana, 222. 

Indianapolis, Ind., 233,560: 35, 243, 

269, 284. 
Ithaca, N. Y., 14,802: 59. 



Jamestown, N. Y., 31,297: 58. 
Jersey City, N. J., 267,779: 113. 

K 

Kalamazoo, ]\Iich., 394,437: 44, 166, 

266, 310. 
Kansas Citv, Mo., 248,381: 312. 
Kearney, N. J., 18,659: 285, 304. 
Kenosha, Wis., 21,371: 206,242. 



Lawrence, Mass., 85,892: 57. 
Lead^^Ue, Colo., 7,508: 52. 
Little FaUs, N. Y., 12,273: 66. 
Los .\ngeles, Cal.. 319,198: 113, 224. 
Louisville, Ky., 223,928: 160, 251, 
266, 268. 

M 

Madison, Wis., 25,531: 112. 
Manchester, N. H., 70,163: 228, 266, 

268. 
Marlboroush, Mass., 14,579: 57, 165, 

307, SOST 
Marquette, Mich., 11,503: 215. 



Marshalltown, Iowa, 13,374: 221. 
Michigan, 184-185, 188-189, 312. 
Middletown, Conn., 11,851: 215, 311. 
MUwaukee, Wis., 373,857: 105. 
Missouri, 227, 243. 

Montgomery, Ala., 38,136: 194, 281. 
Montpeher, Vt., 7,856: 100, 275. 
Morristown, N. J., 12,507: 36. 
Mt. Vernon, N. Y., 30,919: 53, 80, 

268, 271. 
Muncie, Ind., 24,005: 268. 
Muskegon, INIich., 24,062: 35, 250. 



N 



Newark, N. J., 347,469: 94, 161, 166, 
259 281 285 

New Bedford, Mass., 96,652: 268, 
274. 

New Britain, Conn., 43,916: 265, 266. 

Newbm->T)ort, Mass., 14,949: 37, 73, 
160. 

New Jersey, 200, 216. 

New London, Conn., 19,659: 266. 

New Orleans, La., 339,075: 254, 312. 

Newport,, R. I., 27,149: 52. 

Ne\vi:on, Mass., 39,806: 62. 

New York Citv, N. Y., 4,766,883: 8, 
15, 19, 23, 24, 28, 33, 38, 45, 46, 58, 
62, 64, 68, 76, 82, 86, 94, 96, 98, 104, 
106, 107, 118, 123, 125-128, 156, 
161, 168, 169, 170, 174, 224, 227, 
228, 231, 244, 249, 252, 269, 278, 
294, 297, 305, 310, 315, 318. 

Northampton, Mass., 19,431: 13. 



O 



Oklahoma City, Okla., 64,205: 286. 
Orange, N. J., 29,630: 222. 
Oregon, 153, 167, 186. 
Oshkosh, Wis., 33,062: 35. 



Paducah, Kv., 22,760: 241. 
Paris, Texas, 11,269: 194. 
Pasadena, Cal., 30,291: 53, 211. 
Peru, Ind., 10,910: 285. 
Philadelphia, Pa., 1,549,008: 37, 44. 
117, 124, 228, 254, 271, 314. 



351 



HELPING SCHOOL CHILDREN 



Pittsburg, Pa., 533,905: 168, 191-193, 

208. 
Plainfield, N. J., 20,550: 36. 
Portland, Me., 58,511: 23, 29, 261. 
Portland, Ore., 207,214: 11, 266, 284, 

309, 317. 
Portsmouth, N. H., 11,269: 53, 279, 

324. 
Providence, R. I., 224,326: 11, 124, 

147, 164, 228. 

Q 

Quincy, 111., 36,587: 45, 266. 

R 

Racine, Wis, 38,002: 35, 324. 
Reading, Pa., 96,071: 85, 89, 122, 215, 

250. 
Richmond, Ind., 22,324: 30. 
Richmond, Va., 127,628: 104, 120. 
Ridgewood, N. J., 5,416: 314. 
Rochester, N. Y., 218,149: 262. 
Rockford, 111., 45,401: 122. 



Saginaw, Mich., 50,510: 34, 260. 
St. Cloud, Minn., 10,600: 80. 
St. Paul, Minn, 214,744: 112. 
Salt Lake City, Utah, 92,777: 52. 
San Rafael, Cal., 5,934: 157. 
Seattle, Wash., 237,194: 326. 
Selma, Ala., 13,649: 59, 60, 116, 296. 
Shreveport, La., 28,015: 134. 
South Bend, Ind., 53,684: 113, 222, 
241. 



South Bethlehem, Pa., 19,973: 203. 
Spartanburg, S. C, 17,517: 207. 
Stanberry, Mo., 2,121: 134. 
Syracuse, N. Y., 137,249: 62, 157. 



Tennessee, 137, 243, 327. 
Toledo, Ohio, 168,497: 24. 
Topeka, Kans., 43,684: 286. 
Trenton, N. J., 96,815: 60, 165, 287. 



Vineland, N. J., 5,282: 102. 

W 

Waco, Texas, 26,425: 52. 
Waltham, Mass., 27,834: 124. 
Washington, D. C, 331,269: 38, 85, 

195 271 287. 
Water'bury,' Conii., 73,141: 35, 50, 

104. 
Wausaw, Wis., 16,560: 36, 58, 210. 
White Haven, Pa., 1,438: 94. 
WiUiamsport, Pa., 31,860: 266. 
Wilmington, N. C, 25,748: 66. 
Winston Salem, N. C, 22,700: 282. 
Wisconsin, 62, 135, 243. 
Woonsocket, R. I., 38,125: 35. 
Worcester, Mass., 145,986: 124. 
Wyoming, 323. 

X 

Xenia, Ohio, 8,706: 194. 



THE END 



OCT 21 1912 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



019 371 634 9 



